Listen.
What do you hear?
Stop again!
Before you say "Nothing. I don't hear anything." listen again; listen harder.
Do you hear breathing? Do you hear wind? Do you hear cars passing by, people talking, birds chirping, trees dancing? Do you hear the rain on the window pain, laughter, or buzz on the radio?
Most of these sounds we simply try to ignore because they are so irksome. But the obnoxious sounds you so hastily disregard as noise are actually the sounds of potentially great music.
Every sound has a note,
a rhythm,
a reason to be heard.
Music is everywhere, and it is powerful. Why?
Because we hear it so much. Music effects us in ways we are not aware of. We are trained to hurry at honking sounds, be cautious at high pitched sirens, to think of Halloween when we hear pipe organs. Music moves us, drives us, and attracts us to everything that we define ourselves with.
Music - by definition- is "an art of sound in time that expresses ideas and emotions in significant forms through the elements of rhythm, melody, harmony, and color." according to Dictionary.com. Therefore, I believe that if a song does not accurately convey the so called "artists" true ideas and emotions, it is not really, nor can it ever be music.
In this day of electrically manufactured sound, it is hard to find any meaning in music anymore. (Other than the fact that everyone does lots of drugs, has lots of sex, and never have to suffer the repercussions.) But where is the emotion? Where is the actual person in that song? Is Lady Gaga really that worried about Alejandro? If Kesha is the person that she tells about in her songs, then she is one person I would NEVER care to meet. Why do we listen to such garbage and tell ourselves that "It doesn't reflect who I am." "I didn't write the song."
The truth is, the music we listen to DOES heavily reflect the kind of person we are. Just like food, we can put bad things into our mind that can make us sick, or worse, divert us from the values that we once believed we had.
I'd like to depict to you a feeling I had while listening to some music. I was half asleep lying down on my friends sofa in his living room when he put on a record by yet another band I had never heard of. (Sigur Ros) As I lay there floating in between consciousness, I find myself fully surrendered to the music. As the beats pulse through my veins and the chords brush across my cheeks, I am moved to a point of near hysteria. I don't know if I should laugh or cry. Every song is new, and more soothing than the last. I didn't have to listen to any profanity, and I didn't have to do any illegal drugs to have this experience. All it took was a little quieting of my frantic mind, and I was at peace. Everything, every little thing in that short amount of time that I was semi-unconscious on my friends couch, felt like it was going to be alright.
