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For posterity, here is the idea I will never flesh out that spawned the entry below this.

A 26 year old failed musician is working at a faceless retail outlet. Stuff happens, he lands in another world- standard fantasy fare. The entire beginning is mostly to establish an outsider's perspective to give an artificial emotional tint to wherever he ends up, and to lend a more unique air to his newfound abilities- if he was a native, it would be an entirely different flavor than someone coming from another land.
This allows his adaptation to his new world to provide a natural character arc that doesn't require an artificial force prodding him into discoveries about himself; he stumbles into new parts of himself brought to the fore by situations he has never encountered before. Basically, this origin feels best to me because I want an alien feel to my setting, not a familiar one.
At any rate, the main idea behind this character is that he stumbles into political intrigue that, for some reason, wants to make use of him. He opposes this, other things happen, and so on. What makes him special, besides his status as an outsider, is in this world he has an innate connection to music. When he hears music playing, or plays music himself, he is able to take the emotional "feel" of the music and create effects in the physical world with it.
Where it goes from there is fairly cliche', mostly because I don't have a proper characterization for my unnamed protagonist in mind, or a real setting.
Basically I just thought of the music thing in the car and thought it would be a neat idea for a book.