An Ode to Music

Being a musician has saved my life on many occasions, in part because music is my life.  Not only do we listen to music, but music listens to us, with no preconceived notions or judgments about who we are.  Music is the most reliable friend a person can have, always there for you in life’s moments and hours of darkness.  Ironically, there are times so dark when merely pressing play on one of your favorite albums seems nearly impossible to do, because your every waking move happens underwater on dry land — slow-motion — even carrying out the simplest tasks are done with the greatest difficulty.  Eventually, you find the strength to reach out to those things that you love, and they carry you through those dark times, and bring you back to the light again, helping you rebuild yourself one molecule at a time.  

For a musician, the music is your child, your labor of love.  But it is also your parent; the love that music holds for you, its vessel, is a tough love.  Music has many lessons to teach.  I’ve often heard people describe music as fun.  Yes, music can be fun.  But that’s one of the cheaper compliments you can pay.  Music is challenging.  It is painful.  The highs are great and the lows are devastating —  music is an impeccable reflection of life, of the human experience.  

I am grateful that I learned to play piano, albeit late in life.  As vocal a person as I am, in times of trauma we can be left mute in the aftermath.  There are things I can say with my hands on a piano that my voice simply cannot put into words during difficult times.  Over time, distance, and space, some of the most important messages have been transmitted through music, many times through music without words.

And when music has carried me into the light, the warmth — as it helps to rebuild my soul one fragment at a time, I learn to use my voice again.  And then I remember that no matter the pain, my voice will inevitably ascend above all of the earthly turmoil like birds soaring overhead through currents of wind in the sky.  And the same voice, and the same hands on the piano, can help touch those who also reach out to music in their darkest hours.

Music is reciprocal, unconditional love.  It will never give up on you.  Although music will challenge, and even frustrate you at times, music will not quit you.  But should you quit music, it will inevitably welcome you back with equally warm and punitive arms.  Music the parent will chasten, but music the friend will stay up with you all night, picking right back up with you on the page where you left off.  You see, music is unique because it is mother, father, son, daughter, teacher, friend, lover, and self.  Music is sunshine, darkness, oxygen.  Music is nutrients.

Like life, there will always be struggle with music.  Like life, music is teeming with untold beauty.  To describe omnipotence, omnipresence, is to describe music.  It is the great philosopher, the great healer.  It transcends the universe as we know it.  And for some of us, music is our universe.  Without it, our soul would be imprisoned by a body that would sooner than later wither away until it turned to dust.  For some of us, there simply is no without it.  And that includes the universe.  For without music, we would know no universe, or any of the worlds beyond.