As I sat at a red light today, listening to the radio, I heard a song I didn’t recognize. In and of itself, that’s a bit of an event because I listen to a lot of music.

As I let this music roll over me, I was captivated by its structure; its chord progressions. How it interestingly got from one phrase to the next only to then jump to an unexpected place only to stop and swirl there a bit before leading me into yet another space.

Of course, I know that songs have distinct parts (chorus, verse, bridge, pre-chorus, ect). This song had rooms and hallways and light switches and windows and doors.

If found myself thinking how lucky I was to be able to listen to this song, right now. How lucky I was that someone had written it and someone had chosen to record it and someone had chosen to play it over the radio at that moment and how lucky I was to be listening to that station at that time.

If you’re anything like me, you roughly divide the musical universe into two piles: music you enjoy and music you don’t enjoy. Like me, you probably find more joy in music you enjoy than in music you don’t care for. That’s not surprising. Also if you’re anything like me, you’re pretty aware of the pile of music you do enjoy and less aware of the pile of music you don’t enjoy. How big is that pile of music I don’t enjoy? What secrets does it hold that I am missing out on? What mysteries does it hold that I will never know because I’ve relegated it to the “also ran” pile?

I started to wonder just how much music there is. The on-line streaming services boast 100 million tracks. Assuming an average of 3 minutes per track and after a little math, that means if you were to press play and have it play through its entire repertoire at any given minute, it would take just over 570 years to play it all. Even if you knock off half assuming they’re duplicates, that’s still 285 years and I don’t know about you, but I just don’t have time to fit it all in!

And that does not include music that has been lost due to existing prior to recording devices and other such tragedies.

Maybe there is enough for one lifetime in the “do-enjoy” pile for me to live on. I sure hope so.