Hi! Everyone. I know I have been away for a really long time. But have come back with a promise to be in touch with you regularly going forward!
I was actually helping a teen prepare for a speech for her hobby and ended up writing something that is close to my heart… MUSIC!
Music to me and to most of us is a way of life. It does something magical. It is a wonderful gift to humanity. Music moves us, and soothes us. It stimulates. It makes us want to dance or sing. It makes us feel happy or sad, inspired or uplifted. It affects our mood in all kinds of infinite ways. It can be exquisitely subtle or wildly raucous: from a lullaby, to a war cry for revolution.
It is no accident that the Latin word for breath – that prerequisite of music – is spiritus, for, music invokes the spiritual in us. It is of the spirit and so is universal, other-worldly.
Music has always been a big part of my life, from watching Barney and Nursery rhymes with my little girl or listening to my grandpa’s own compositions and to the Latest “One Direction” band that the Teens in my life insist I listenend to. I’ve always loved music, whether its oldies music, Classical Karnatic or Hindustani or Rabindra Sangeet, or filmy music… Vocal or Instrumental.
Music literally turns my frown upside down! Even when there isn’t music playing, there is always a song in my head. I sing/ listen to music in the car, while cooking or when I’m cleaning, or at work all the time! In fact even during my school & college time my conv
EVER SINCE I can remember, music has been an accompaniment in my life. It would be impossible for me to even try and conceptualise a world without music. If you have a natural aptitude and appreciation for it, then music simply draws you to it and connects. Watch a baby nodding her head, clapping her hands, or bouncing in response to a rhythm or melody.
I’m not a music ‘expert’. I’m a music lover. Music for me is pure ‘potentiality’. I can engage with it. I can commune with it. Sometimes, if I’m open to it, it takes me by surprise, and I step out of myself. Music is a friend, a companion, a guide and a teacher. Music is chord structure, harmony or dissonance.
Music is the universal language. I think it should be required by law for each student to take a music appreciation class. I have never heard someone say that they don’t like music. Music is an art form, an expression of thoughts and feelings.
Music also tells stories, breaks hearts, reduces us to tears, or seduces us into falling in love. A human creation from a divine source… perhaps.
However, there are other questions that need to be asked: what does the wind sound like, or a waterfall, the ocean, early-morning birdsong? Can this be a form of music too? A baby gurgling, whispers, a log fire crackling, animal sounds, city sounds, laughter, the roar of a cricket crowd, voice of a loved one ?……………… Are these sounds musical to your ears?
How does music make you feel? Does it make you nostalgic? Where does it take you in your internal landscape? How can a specific piece of music take you to a certain period in your life?
What does silence sound like? Have you ever experienced silence? Do you like it? Are your thoughts too loud? Where is your mind located? Is music located ‘inside’ your mind or ‘outside’ of you?
These are not just random questions; they are the kind of questions rarely posed when young people start to learn how to approach an instrument. Yet, I think they need to be asked, because music is so much more than just going through the motions of producing a sound. People may be able to play well mechanically – because they have learned to copy well – but in doing so they do not truly connect with the essence of music and express themselves.
WE HAVE BECOME so accustomed to recorded sound that it has become rather formulaic. When you can literally access any piece of recorded music at the touch of a fingertip, something valuable gets lost or devalued in the process. Music has become ubiquitous. It’s in shops, restaurants, bars, airports, waiting rooms – in fact, anywhere that people gather. Sadly, in a way, music has become just another kind of social ‘filler’, like small talk or gossip.
I get frustrated when I hear the piano being played in the background at the lobby of a five star hotel and nobody pays attention to it. However good it may be unfortunately it has become a ‘background’. And the artists rarely get appreciation.
Research has shown that music has a profound effect on your body and psyche. In fact, there’s a growing field of health care known as MUSIC THERAPY, which uses music to heal. Those who practice music therapy are finding a benefit in using music to help cancer patients, children with ADD, and others, and even hospitals are beginning to use music and music therapy to help with pain management, to help ward off depression, to promote movement, to calm patients, to ease muscle tension, and for many other benefits that music and music therapy can bring.
To many, music is nothing like what it used to be, but, to some, it is so much more. There are no bounds to what music can bring us. It has no purpose set in stone. We will use it, abuse it, and reuse it to our very end. So, to me, music means everything. I love it because I can’t imagine a life without music.
