I’m sitting in my favorite coffee shop in Nashville, trying to get some work done for my album release show … which will be here, at Ugly Mugs in less than 2 weeks.
I should be working.
I put my headphones in and picked my poison – a new song my long time friend sent me of his awhile back, and now I can’t get anything done.
I am an unfocused, romantic, right-brainer who spends more time in my own head than probably anywhere else.
When I went to college for music I was a little bit more optimistic. I was more of a dreamer.
I’ve come to admire the organized, the logical and the comedic, and I’m proud that I have been able to stretch myself more to the “left” side of my brain.
Still, as much as I’d like to deny it, I’m still the romantic I was 10 years ago.
So, in go the headphones, off goes my brain.
I feel, I dream, music pumps through my veins and it speaks for me.
I didn’t know anything about music when I was little other than how it was physically satisfying to breathe air in my lungs and have a melody come out. It felt good to sit in front of our old beat up organ and pound out the stress of school…of life… of cancer…and it felt safe to fall asleep to the sound of my dad’s fingers sqeaking on the frets and my mom singing Summertime.
I’ve spent 20 years learning the science of music, and forgetting the mystery of it.
On all accounts music makes wonderful, logical sense. There is a scale, there is rhythm, there is always a perfect relative minor to every major.
To some, the circle of fifths, the scale, the “mathematical-ness” of music is glorious. It is unchanging. It is truth. It is order. Part of the challenge of being a musician, is creating something unique and beautiful within those rules.
Not to be overly dramatic (okay, maybe a little) but he more I learned the “rules” the more the magic of music left my soul.
Sit down at the piano. Play a chord. Let your fingers travel without knowing the rules. Play another chord. Sing a melody over the top of it. I don’t know how it works, but it sends both thrill and ache through my bones.
That’s how it used to be. And I miss it.
Back to me and the fact that I’m paralyzed with emotion within the first 5 seconds of a song.
How do notes and time and words do such a thing?
On the flip side, something can be put together with amazing skill, but still lack the emotion to move someone.
The reason things make musical sense can be found in any Music Theory textbook.
The reason it stirs my heart will not…and the unfocused, romantic, right-brainer is glad for the mystery.
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Very eloquently said, Flo. After getting a B.A. in music, I had to stop listening/playing for a few months because the ‘mystery’ was lost. In fact, many sounds became irritating and even the human voice was perceived as an instrument of pitch… talk about burnout! Luckily, the mind and senses return to normal after a rest and breaking the rules becomes fun again. One of my favorite professors would ask us time and again: “How does it sound?â€