Sunday, November 25, 2007

A Quarter Note on Music

Music is amazing. It's transcendent. At least for me.

In her comment to my last post Kim mentioned that "Music can recreate a feeling in the here and now when words fail."

I find that an eloquent description. And I will add to that by saying that I can use music to CREATE a feeling within me...allowing me to evoke certain moods and states of being within myself just as one might cultivate different soils to produce different fruits.

I wrote something back in December of 2003 on music. It was an attempt at trying to convey its importance...

"what place inside does a series of notes touch that moves us to a feeling so strong that the life in front of us seems but a shadow, less than real?

a dream in which you know you are an actor, and in that knowing remain somehow protected from the full spectrum of what the heart is heir to..

if on the other side of the world there is a berry of which we have never tasted, how can we know that taste by another's description? or its smell?

therefore, what langauge does music speak that our heart finds fluency? from where in our lives have we felt that music with our hearts and not our ears?

and what doors have we shut on our own lives that the heart must remember its fullness by the tune outside the window?"

This is where I would normally blather on and on about what music means to me. And I would use colorful language and rich metaphors to describe something which has no good verbal explanation. But rather than go in to all of that, I invite audience participation. I would rather you all comment on music's influence on you.

The floor is open....

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Music is captivating... Hypnotic... Inspiring... Rejuvenating... & while it is also 'transcending', For me it is more often encapsulating... encompassing...

Music never 'creates' a feeling for me when words fail... It embodies it. Captures it.

A moment or thought or emotion is suddenly expressed through voice and music and immediately when I heard it, was dazed. The music literally caused me to stand still...

I didn't even know it until I heard it.

It brings forth an honesty of emotion that I think sometimes, we didn't know we buried and awakens it to reality by those mere vibrations & rhythm to the beat, the words, the meaning... as only we could take it to mean...

I think that's the beauty in it. It will affect you differently than it will I. Sometimes the same, but for the most part, One can hear a song and walk away feeling so much more than another. Just as powerful... but unique.

I crave music when I am working. Not at my normal job, but at home, renovating. It motivates me. & while I have to be honest and admit, I am too lazy to change it from my favorite station... Country... [Don't be a hater... ;-)

I am often impressed and moved by music that my friends share with me.

In the end, I think that what doors we have shut... that our heart remembers as it does not forget, is often reminded of its strength & weakness by the tune outside of the window.

~jenny