that has the ability to soothe the soul while it simultaneously sends it reeling in turmoil and heartache, joy and sadness; reminiscing and rebelling even as it brings us back, unto ourselves, full circle?
That is is the beauty of it, is it not, to touch the untouchable space in the soul and spark the imagination? To make us think beyond what we know so that we try to touch on that which we weren’t even aware we wanted to know?
Part of the mystery? The enigma? The fascination?
I listen to music for hours every day, various genres ranging from hard, head-banging rock, to soothing yet heartbreaking cello, to piano concertos. There are soaring arias, operatic manifestations that vary widely from my beloved Bryn to local, struggling, yet resilient talent, all of which move me on one one level or another.
Move me to seek, to find, to think, to imagine, to embrace and learn what I’ve always wanted to know. It, music, is a kind of courage that makes one feel worthy to not only want to know, but to feel that they have right to discover.
It is empowering, this music of which I speak and it belongs to all of us.
Listening to music and interpreting it is no different really, than developing the photographs I take and finding in each one something magnificent or a flaw that makes it unintelligible and useless on every level.
Music is the same.
There are pieces that I listen to daily because I cannot help myself. I love them, the sound of them, the places they take my mind whether I want to go or not and that is part of its power.
The power to take one on a journey, maybe pleasurable, possibly painful, but a journey that will leave the listener feeling more than they felt before and less because now, they realize that they were, prior to this moment, incomplete.
It is a humbling experience, understanding music and feeling a connection.
Anyone can hear music, but only some can comprehend it understand it and seek it because the choice, once they have experienced it, is no longer their own.
They are a slave to the sound, the vibrations, the magic that music has to offer.
There are composers who enamor me more than others, some very well known, some known not at all.
It makes little difference, at the end of the day.
There are composers I love to hear and conductors I love to watch. Some, at their very core, are nothing less than brilliant.
There are songs that are sappy and sentimental that pull at me just as there are instrumentals that draw from the depths of my inner being and make me feel things that I had either forgotten or purposely hidden away.
I’m still not sure how I feel about those except they evoke emotions that I’m not fully prepared to embrace.
It is during these indecisive moments that I throw things at mirrors, shattering them and feeling perfectly fine about it.
Whether it soothes my spirit, fries my brain or breaks my heart, I need music; it is the language, fourth to words, shadow and light, of my blood.
I can’t play a note of it, but I have an innate understanding of it.
It moves me like the river flowing over the rocks that I so dearly love.
Without music, everything else in my life would go on as it always has, but all of the emotions would be diluted. That, to me, is a sobering thought.
Severance Hall … Cleveland Orchestra … Mahler’s First.
My favorite trumpeter …
Proof that nature is full of music and miraculous things…
The joy of simply knowing what music is about …
A clarinetists’ hands … music and beauty and awesomeness lives therein …
A Photographer's Heart 