jday
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Imagine you live in a world where music does not exist. No singing. No dancing. No musical instruments. It’s an otherwise normal world; and yet completely different considering the absence of music.
There is still happiness, anger, love, hate, joy, sadness, etc.; all the variety of emotions we contend with here in this world, that beyond physical manifestation is often expressed through music. There is still young children playing in parks with their peals of laughter possessing a quality of music. There are still scary movies; just no music to tell you when to peak through your fingers and when to jump. There are “I do’s” promised at weddings, vows reverently spoken, and the hammering beat of two lovers hearts as they plunge into eternity together…as one…and there is music in that union, but no wedding march for the bride-to-be to walk on arm and arm with her father in the moments preceding that wonderful and terrifying beginning.
Now…Imagine having grown up in that world. No favorite band, song, radio station to listen to. Remove, if you can, all the various associations with music from your memory banks that you have…just for the moment…temporarily. Forget that song your mother used to sing you to sleep with or comfort you with in illness and knee-scrapes. Black-out the tune your father hummed or whistled as he knocked out weekend honey-do’s. Imagine you have lived your entire life in a world devoid of music of any kind; save the incidental music that occurs in everyday life, such as the grinding beat of traffic or the raucous orchestra of a night spent in a jungle or the symphony of crickets, owls, and bull frogs off any rural Texas country road.
A world brimming with noises, save one: music.
And now imagine, after so many years of never hearing a single tune sung or chord struck or note breathed through brass instrument, your life being interrupted by a classical melody descending upon you without warning or pretext; a concerto of sound and harmony that you seemingly float on and allow it to carry you through the next several moments of your day. Having never heard music before, it more than disturbs your day; it hijacks your life. Your ears, your mind, your soul is filled with tunes it has never before heard or felt. Can you imagine? Can you visualize the catalog of thoughts and questions that would all at once go racing through your head?
What is this? What is this beautiful collection of noises erupting at once into my mind that seemingly is organized and well thought out? How and why is this occurring now? Why have I not been exposed to this before? Is this the voice of God desperately trying to speak to me for the first time?
Can you imagine the emotions that would hold you hostage in that moment?
Much would depend on the tune; Requiem in D minor by Mozart, The Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven, Canon in D Major by Pachelbel or (more recent) Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings would certainly be an amazing musical introduction. The key to true appreciation, however, is first capturing that aforementioned mind-state; a condition of never having heard music before. Then, and only then, can you truly understand and grasp what emotions were being communicated at the time those particular songs were dreamed into existence, plucked from the mind of genius and penned into being on paper in the form of unassuming notes on otherwise ordinary musical bars. If capturing that frame of mind is beyond you, you’re likely to be bored by the aforementioned selections.
Envision the genius of early musical artist:
Before hearing a single tune of their masterpieces, every note, every instrument, every inflection, every stanza played out in their mind in minute detail. They wrote all of their music before actually physically hearing it….which means long before the concerto entertained kings and queens, the composer likely hummed along to a foreign tune only he or she could hear as if possessed by spirits no one, including the artist, could see. And then this composer would translate the tune being played out in his or her head in the form of notes assigned to numerous instruments of various design to capture the essence of what he or she heard. And who knows how close the retelling was to the original piece heard nowhere but inside the head of the composer. Perhaps there were instruments in his or her mind that was not even in existence in that real world.
Nevertheless, evidenced by our collective access to these tunes today, in truth it does not matter; nor does the interpretation. What matters is the immortality these artist found in the communal appreciation of their creation; their contribution to the world like a mountain dropped in an ocean, the resulting waves finding every corner of the earth and enrapturing the minds of its listeners for an eternity. There is a largely overlooked and underappreciated sorcery in that.
To the musically illiterate eyes of the world, a sheet of music appears as a series of lines and squiggly symbols on a piece of paper. But to the musician, the singer, and the composer, within those lines is a form of mind control; a voluntary hypnosis where a musician or singer can speak to the world without the need for translation. The music, rather or not you understand the language spoken in the lyrics, communicates the emotion; the story. It carries your mind as if on a raft in a river; sometimes the water is a mirror only broken by the occasional drops of dew from the weeping willows grasping for the sky above; sometimes tumultuous like roaring rapids that crescendo in falls of unknown height into a tributary of unknown depth. Life and death is found in its embrace. And when you come out the other side, you are physically unaltered and yet emotionally changed forever.
All of us can relate to that moment where music has in some way, form, or fashion touched us in a manner beyond description. That place where music reached out and made you feel something; anything. What you felt is unimportant. The fact that you felt without asking; without effort; without intent on your minds part, is the truly magical aspect of music. It does not ask permission. It does not demand attention so much as it assumes it. From the moment it clutches your ears, rather or not you planned it as part of your day, you feel something unbidden, uninvited, and unintentional…it becomes a part of you…a dance between sound and your spirit, until the sound finally collapses…but your spirit dances on…it carries you through the rest of your day until you lay your head on your pillow and close your eyes for the final time…and the memory of that melody carries you the rest of the way to unconsciousness.
And for the truly touching music, you can hear it inexplicably in unexpected ways; in the drone of a fan, or within the sounds emanating from a lawn mower next door, or in the menagerie of voices engaged in conversation within the confines of a crowd springing from nowhere and everywhere all at once; you hear it…you feel it. Your heart pulse may even adopt the beat for those truly captivating epics. Your inhale and exhale becomes the trill symbols that accent the deep earth-shaking bass that reverberates, resonates and echoes through your mind and body.
Within and between the notes are innate instructions on what to feel. In a moment of happiness, you can find sadness without context. Within a moment of loneliness, you can find companionship without the benefit of a separate soul in close proximity. From a state of ardent anger you can find immediate and all-encompassing contentment with the right song at the right time…like magic.
Surrounded by enemies in a world brimming with hate fueled by selfish ambition, one can find immediate escape within musical confinement. We can forget the world. Forget the people. Forget the expectations. Forget our life specific responsibilities. Within the folds of music we can also be reminded of what truly is important, what people truly do care, and what we ultimately want from life beyond everything we desire: finding acceptance among our peers…and with our one…whomever that may be…whenever that may be.
We can be miles away within inches of another face possessing another mind that is also miles away. We can go back in time simply through listening to a song we first listened to many years ago; in the matter of a moment we are transported back through nostalgia and we can remember what we thought then; what we felt. We can leap forward beyond times reach…the hand meeting a wall the moment it slides into the present, while we float on without borders or restraints with the wind of music powering our sails and simultaneously acting as our guide.
An endless array of emotions, feelings, our own existence defined by music. Music can be the common ground or the point of separation. Music can define your wardrobe, your thoughts, your beliefs and your understanding or lack thereof. And yet, despite all that is controlled in our world by the simple existence of music, we lose sight of its role in knowing who we are…what we are about…what we believe.
With all of that being said, what song best defines you? Is there more than one? On this thread, we contribute music.
.
There is still happiness, anger, love, hate, joy, sadness, etc.; all the variety of emotions we contend with here in this world, that beyond physical manifestation is often expressed through music. There is still young children playing in parks with their peals of laughter possessing a quality of music. There are still scary movies; just no music to tell you when to peak through your fingers and when to jump. There are “I do’s” promised at weddings, vows reverently spoken, and the hammering beat of two lovers hearts as they plunge into eternity together…as one…and there is music in that union, but no wedding march for the bride-to-be to walk on arm and arm with her father in the moments preceding that wonderful and terrifying beginning.
Now…Imagine having grown up in that world. No favorite band, song, radio station to listen to. Remove, if you can, all the various associations with music from your memory banks that you have…just for the moment…temporarily. Forget that song your mother used to sing you to sleep with or comfort you with in illness and knee-scrapes. Black-out the tune your father hummed or whistled as he knocked out weekend honey-do’s. Imagine you have lived your entire life in a world devoid of music of any kind; save the incidental music that occurs in everyday life, such as the grinding beat of traffic or the raucous orchestra of a night spent in a jungle or the symphony of crickets, owls, and bull frogs off any rural Texas country road.
A world brimming with noises, save one: music.
And now imagine, after so many years of never hearing a single tune sung or chord struck or note breathed through brass instrument, your life being interrupted by a classical melody descending upon you without warning or pretext; a concerto of sound and harmony that you seemingly float on and allow it to carry you through the next several moments of your day. Having never heard music before, it more than disturbs your day; it hijacks your life. Your ears, your mind, your soul is filled with tunes it has never before heard or felt. Can you imagine? Can you visualize the catalog of thoughts and questions that would all at once go racing through your head?
What is this? What is this beautiful collection of noises erupting at once into my mind that seemingly is organized and well thought out? How and why is this occurring now? Why have I not been exposed to this before? Is this the voice of God desperately trying to speak to me for the first time?
Can you imagine the emotions that would hold you hostage in that moment?
Much would depend on the tune; Requiem in D minor by Mozart, The Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven, Canon in D Major by Pachelbel or (more recent) Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings would certainly be an amazing musical introduction. The key to true appreciation, however, is first capturing that aforementioned mind-state; a condition of never having heard music before. Then, and only then, can you truly understand and grasp what emotions were being communicated at the time those particular songs were dreamed into existence, plucked from the mind of genius and penned into being on paper in the form of unassuming notes on otherwise ordinary musical bars. If capturing that frame of mind is beyond you, you’re likely to be bored by the aforementioned selections.
Envision the genius of early musical artist:
Before hearing a single tune of their masterpieces, every note, every instrument, every inflection, every stanza played out in their mind in minute detail. They wrote all of their music before actually physically hearing it….which means long before the concerto entertained kings and queens, the composer likely hummed along to a foreign tune only he or she could hear as if possessed by spirits no one, including the artist, could see. And then this composer would translate the tune being played out in his or her head in the form of notes assigned to numerous instruments of various design to capture the essence of what he or she heard. And who knows how close the retelling was to the original piece heard nowhere but inside the head of the composer. Perhaps there were instruments in his or her mind that was not even in existence in that real world.
Nevertheless, evidenced by our collective access to these tunes today, in truth it does not matter; nor does the interpretation. What matters is the immortality these artist found in the communal appreciation of their creation; their contribution to the world like a mountain dropped in an ocean, the resulting waves finding every corner of the earth and enrapturing the minds of its listeners for an eternity. There is a largely overlooked and underappreciated sorcery in that.
To the musically illiterate eyes of the world, a sheet of music appears as a series of lines and squiggly symbols on a piece of paper. But to the musician, the singer, and the composer, within those lines is a form of mind control; a voluntary hypnosis where a musician or singer can speak to the world without the need for translation. The music, rather or not you understand the language spoken in the lyrics, communicates the emotion; the story. It carries your mind as if on a raft in a river; sometimes the water is a mirror only broken by the occasional drops of dew from the weeping willows grasping for the sky above; sometimes tumultuous like roaring rapids that crescendo in falls of unknown height into a tributary of unknown depth. Life and death is found in its embrace. And when you come out the other side, you are physically unaltered and yet emotionally changed forever.
All of us can relate to that moment where music has in some way, form, or fashion touched us in a manner beyond description. That place where music reached out and made you feel something; anything. What you felt is unimportant. The fact that you felt without asking; without effort; without intent on your minds part, is the truly magical aspect of music. It does not ask permission. It does not demand attention so much as it assumes it. From the moment it clutches your ears, rather or not you planned it as part of your day, you feel something unbidden, uninvited, and unintentional…it becomes a part of you…a dance between sound and your spirit, until the sound finally collapses…but your spirit dances on…it carries you through the rest of your day until you lay your head on your pillow and close your eyes for the final time…and the memory of that melody carries you the rest of the way to unconsciousness.
And for the truly touching music, you can hear it inexplicably in unexpected ways; in the drone of a fan, or within the sounds emanating from a lawn mower next door, or in the menagerie of voices engaged in conversation within the confines of a crowd springing from nowhere and everywhere all at once; you hear it…you feel it. Your heart pulse may even adopt the beat for those truly captivating epics. Your inhale and exhale becomes the trill symbols that accent the deep earth-shaking bass that reverberates, resonates and echoes through your mind and body.
Within and between the notes are innate instructions on what to feel. In a moment of happiness, you can find sadness without context. Within a moment of loneliness, you can find companionship without the benefit of a separate soul in close proximity. From a state of ardent anger you can find immediate and all-encompassing contentment with the right song at the right time…like magic.
Surrounded by enemies in a world brimming with hate fueled by selfish ambition, one can find immediate escape within musical confinement. We can forget the world. Forget the people. Forget the expectations. Forget our life specific responsibilities. Within the folds of music we can also be reminded of what truly is important, what people truly do care, and what we ultimately want from life beyond everything we desire: finding acceptance among our peers…and with our one…whomever that may be…whenever that may be.
We can be miles away within inches of another face possessing another mind that is also miles away. We can go back in time simply through listening to a song we first listened to many years ago; in the matter of a moment we are transported back through nostalgia and we can remember what we thought then; what we felt. We can leap forward beyond times reach…the hand meeting a wall the moment it slides into the present, while we float on without borders or restraints with the wind of music powering our sails and simultaneously acting as our guide.
An endless array of emotions, feelings, our own existence defined by music. Music can be the common ground or the point of separation. Music can define your wardrobe, your thoughts, your beliefs and your understanding or lack thereof. And yet, despite all that is controlled in our world by the simple existence of music, we lose sight of its role in knowing who we are…what we are about…what we believe.
With all of that being said, what song best defines you? Is there more than one? On this thread, we contribute music.
.
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