For relaxation I enjoy Dan Gibson's solitude series. One of my mainstream favs is Peter Gabriel's New Blood Live in London. Love the backing by the orchestra!

I agree with you Koolman. I'm not crazy about the music piped through our office, so I usually listen to a classical music station on Pandora at my desk. If I'm feeling peppy, I love big band. A few days ago I was in a hifi store that had Kenny Burrell playing. That was really good stuff. However, if you look at my ipod, there's everything from classical to punk, rap, rock, country, blue grass. A little bit of everything. Music is very important to life.

Excellent! Wannabe, your mentioning the word Pandora brought up a very sad fact: James Horner, who composed the music of Avatar, as well as Titanic, Braveheart, Cocoon, Star Trek II and III, Glory, Apollo 13 and a slew of other hit movies is no longer with us. But we'll always have the music he was able to compose during his time here. I'm wanting to beef up my Horner soundtrack collection a bit, because I really do love his music, and because his loved ones can always use a few extra bucks pumped into his estate.

Music is great. I like the lot. Whatever helps a person experience and express their emotions is a really good thing. I have never deliberately listened to a soundtrack other than 'I brother where art thou' but I know my father did. My kids expose me to all sorts I never would otherwise listen to, some of it's hilarious.

*o brother where art thou. Sorry.

O' Brother Where Art Thou?" is great!

I got turned onto movie music in 1977 with John Williams' Star Wars. He made classical music popular!

It's funny, I call that stuff modern. Classical to me is Bach., beethoven, chopin, Vivaldi,etc. Vivaldi is fantastic. And trio loussier play Bach is a riot - if you like jazz. I love brahms too, I grew up on it. And of course opera. I grew up on opera too. Not just the big Italian greats, but the weird ones like brecht. I used to love Gregorian plainsong too. I could lie on the couch and pretend I was from king arthur's time. There is always something there for however you're feeling. After my last breakup I listened to a lot of smashing pumpkins.

I love those classical masters too. I think the reason I like movie scores is there's the visual kinetic element, the moving image and a story, that the music has to conform to, that stimulates the visual imagination when one listens to the music. But real classical music is very powerful too, and conjures up ONE'S OWN "inner movie", like "this music would go well to gallopping horses" or something. God knows Kubrick tapped Strauss and other classical composers to "score" his 2001-A Space Odyssey!

Alex North composed an original score for 2001, but Kubrick completely discarded it in favor of the classical pieces, which, I agree, better suited his grand vision for a space epic. I heard pieces of North's score to 2001, and while it would've served its purpose, of generating excitement and suspense, it sounded 1950s sci-fi genre, like Earth vs. the Flying Saucers.

Oh I definitely think the score for 2001 space odyssey was the perfect music for it. Just amazing. I don't know if it would have been the same event with 1950's sci fi music. :)