“If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music.”
This is one of my favorite quotes because I understand it so very well. While scientists see math as the universal communicator, I see it as music. I am not a musician, but my life is intertwined with them. I’m a self proclaimed ‘Music Addict’ and I hope I’m never cured. I’m a writer and photographer and I enjoy using these skills to create a way for people to see the music, a way to translate what I feel when I watch shows. I try to be an artist of this language that all can understand. I watch my friends work so hard on their skills, finding their place in the melodies they play. They harmonize in ways that make my soul take flight and when they close their eyes I know they feel it in their soul as well. Those are my favorite moments, as well as when they break out into smiles as they feel the energy of the crowd. These are things I remember well… and apparently for good reason.
Music moves us emotionally but it wires us to the moment. A study from Stanford Medicine (http://stan.md/2vxRNKA) shows that while we drift in our emotions, caught up in the music surrounding us, during moments of quiet or changes in the movement we become very aware. Our minds push to grab onto the next moment and we remember the things happening much more clearly. That time you looked at your love during a concert and watched their eyes shine, when you saw your best friend smiling and throwing horns as they delighted in the sounds of their favorite band… perhaps the moment the lead guitarist seemed to lock eyes with you in the crowd. These are times that will burn into your memory so that you can recall the emotional state surrounding it.
“Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent”
The emotions of music connect us to each other and to certain times in our lives. Think of it this way, when you meet a person at a concert and find that they are fans of the same band, you have just made a connection and an important discovery – this person is wired just like you in a way. This goes beyond age, race, lifestyle. Once, sitting outside of a venue, I met a man who had just retired. His wife was shopping and they were visiting Pittsburgh. We began to share music tastes, each looking up songs we loved and sharing them, finding elements in the songs that moved us. I’m metal, he’s country, but we shared something and when his wife came to collect him I heard him telling her, as they walked away, about the band I would be seeing that night, the venue and it’s history, the song he loved that I introduced him to that he wanted her to hear. The connection causes ripples. Shared experience. Even at your loneliest times, you know that you’re not really alone. Happiness, love, sadness, rage, music expresses when we can’t fully put into words things inside of us that we need to let out, even when we can’t find a way. It’s the reason our movies have a soundtrack. Our advertisements have songs written for them.
Your life has a soundtrack too. It changes as you do, the days are happier, angrier or more determined and so is the music you look to hear. Whether you are washing dishes, driving, sitting at work, music helps time go faster. You can find it all around you. You were born with music in you. Your heart beats in drum-like rhythm, breathing creates a supporting pulse like a bass, you began to coo as a baby and delighted at the sound the sounds you made. Music creates it’s own world, a place you can feel everything, live countless lives or remember moments in time. My life is backed by a soundtrack of varying artists, different genres. I may start my day with something classic, end it with something hard. As I write this, I’m listening to Starset – It Has Begun https://youtu.be/XZp3Mtn-YsI. Do you feel the connection? What’s your soundtrack like?
