Timberwolf
11/21/13
Language of the Soul
“Without music life would be a mistake.”[2]
What a powerful, potent expression. Music is the emotive glue that holds every human
being together. It can make us laugh and cry at once for no discernible reason.
Music has the power to make us feel. Each person perceives music differently, but
all know how it feels to be affected. We understand when someone describes a
piece of music giving them chills or punching them in the gut like bullets piercing
Kevlar on an Emotion-Proof Vest. It is universal, yet personal. For these
reasons and many others, music is my passion.
I am a
passionate person, and claim a multitude of other obsessions. I’m overwhelmed
by the act of learning and the inspired creativity it can enact. The way a
person lights up when the significance of a piece of knowledge hits them.
Learning is something we all can enjoy, in some shape or form. In this way it
is like music. But music is the ultimate, defining passion in my life because
it is the purest expression of what passion really is: perfect emotion,
wordless communication. It fills the void where words and even knowledge fail.
One cannot describe a color in words, but Stevie Ray’s guitar can make me feel
as blue or as red or as green as a filtered light in a grimy New Orleans jazz
club.
Although I
know that my zealous pursuit of music began at a young age, I cannot trace it
back to a specific moment or source. It is an aspect of myself as familiar as
an appendage or a cognitive language. In truth, it probably slipped into me
around the same time as verbal communication. My parents are music fanatics, their
home busting at the seams with song. Rushing through the early, developmental
stages of life in this climate, I’m told I would bounce in my Bouncy-Saucer to
the beat of whatever song was currently playing.
One morning when I was four I rode
with my father to church. I had recently taken notice of the fact that he was
perpetually singing one tune or another. I asked him why, to which he promptly
replied, “Well, because I’m happy, bud.” It struck a chord in me, no pun
intended. From that point on, music was associated with happiness and happy
memories. It took on as well a mystical quality. To a boy, anything his father
acknowledges as appreciable is thereafter put on a pedestal. So it was with
music.
Flashes of discombobulated
color and noise from my childhood are filled with music. My mother has always
loved musicals and classical movies, and thus I was brought up hearing Singin’ in the Rain and Que Sera, Sera
from the Man Who Knew too much. My
grandfather would sing “You are my Sunshine” to me as a child. I had not connected
these recollections to my passion for music until now. Yet I see the
significance: music has always held a positive connotation.
As I grew, musical preferences molded into personal
taste. This palate has progressed over time from Screamo in those angst ridden
years of preadolescence to the soulful, aggressive blues of Dan Auerbach and
Jack White; to the jagged, unrelenting poeticism of Marcus Mumford and the simple
honesty of the Avett Brothers and Citizen Cope. Some of these artists inspire
me at each listen, while others remind me of painful memories I’d rather
forget. Either way, the music remains, imprinted in staves. Certain lines
remain red-hot in memory, as well as the lives of their creators. “You don't
need anybody to tell you who you are or what you are. You are what you are!”[3]. .
. “My music fights against the system that teaches to live and die.”[4]
Bob Marley of course, author of the second quote above.
At some point I realized that while
hearing music would leave me awestruck, the creation of it could feed me. It seemed a sin not creating my
own interpretations. I sang and eventually picked up guitar, eager to somehow
be equal to the musicians I revered. I thought somehow, maybe, that others
could be moved by what I created, just as I had been inspired. I daydreamed
about one day having a band, how COOL that would be! I wanted to be that front
man on stage, kicking out footlights and smashing guitars. Although this dream
has not yet come to fruition, I did as much in music as possible while a
student. I felt that in some small way my actions could inspire someone. There was an instance, for
example, wherein a man who lost his wife to cancer came to me after I had
performed in my high school production of Les Miserables. He told me that the
finale of that show had given him an image of what he hoped heaven would be
like. The experience still gives me chills in recollection. I was so very
humbled, to think that a man in such pain could somehow take solace in what we
had done.
Hugh Jackman. He played Jean
Valjean in the movie portrayal of Les Mis, and is one of my favorite actors.
I suppose my explanation stands
properly, but in the words of Professor J. Gilbert McAllister, “so what? . . . What
difference does it make?”[7]
What does it matter? Does any ofit really
matter if I don’t use the gifts I have been given to help others? Is this the
specific gift bestowed on me for that purpose? Admittedly, to this final
question I have no response. I ask myself every day, never any closer to an
answer. Of late I have decided that the answer is no. The snarling dogs of
reason and logic encircling me, I chose to drop my music major. “I’d never
truly make it. I’d end up bitter and unsuccessful, wishing I’d become a lawyer
or professor.” This seems sound in reasoning, even still. But then, where has
my happiness gone? My cup is no longer full. I debate transferring to Belmont
University in Nashville to pursue music and a major in Music Business, longing
to be immersed in music again. Could I find something better, or is this my
reason for being? Yet, the purpose of this essay is not an existential battle,
but the aforementioned question. So what?
The future
that I have always wanted-- desperately so-- has nothing in truth to do with
monetary reward or large-scale success. To me, the greatest impact anyone can
have on the world is to inspire others. It could be a hundred thousand people,
or one. To some the world we live in is arduous, unhappy, and filled with
suffering. Yet inspiration can make life glorious. If your actions can move
another to trudge one more day through the mire of living, then you have
obtained success.
Bearing
this in mind, I feel that there are endless ways I could help people through
music. Even without making it my career. For the sake of argument, I will
choose to imagine that I make my way into the music industry. In five years, I
want to see myself on some sort of stage, be it large or small. The setting is
unimportant. I would like to have written music of my own, or possibly to have
a group with whom I write. I see myself playing this music in a setting
intimate enough for me to connect with an audience. I would love the
opportunity to create music with those around me organically. Allowing music to
grow from playing together creates something beautiful, and artists such as Bob
Dylan were known for coming up with their best records in this fashion. “He
just started strummin’ and we jumped in after about two or four bars. . .
There’s no overdubbing. There’s no patching up. . . What you heard is what we
did.”[8]
To create such a situation would be
an attempt to inspire. Playing music for others would become a service. A way
for me to give back to others with what gifts I possess. I would not wish to do
so for personal vanity, but so that people might be moved by what I or others
have written. This also would serve the somewhat selfish notion of helping me
answer life’s difficult questions. We are all here, therefore have something to
live for. But what I am here to live
for? For what purpose was I given life? If I could find the answers, these
truths would “set me free”. Art is a way for humanity to do just that, and
music especially is an outward cry for answers.
Music is an avenue through which we
explore each other and ourselves. It is the bursting forth of those emotions we
cannot hope to describe, inspiring us in ways nothing else can. Therefore it
would be the greatest achievement to somehow do this with my own music and
talents. To leave behind such enduring remembrance of what I stood for could
mean that even after I am gone, someone may still be encouraged by what I
experienced. That is the torch I would leave behind. A message of compassion
and understanding. Life is not easy but it can be beautiful. Just stop and
listen.
Who knows
if I will amount to these ends? Possibly I will follow a completely separate path.
It could be children, a family, and a normal life. Maybe I will become a lawyer
or professor in the end. These options seem no less viable, important, or
worthy. Certainly they are avenues through which to help and lead others. Music
simply brings such helpfulness from another source: different, but no less
beneficial to others. No matter what I decide, in my future I will use my life
and gifts to make others’ lives a little happier, and a little easier. These
ends met, I’ll consider myself a Fortunate Son.
WITH QUOTES: 1773
WITHOUT QUOTES: 1617
[1] DMCA,
"HD Wallpaper." Last modified 2013. Accessed November 14, 2013. https://webtaj.com/cool-music-14809.html.
[2]
Friedrich, Nietzsche. Good Reads Inc., "Quotable Quote." Last
modified November 2013. Accessed November 14, 2013. http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/4590-without-music-life-would-be-a-mistake.
[3]
Partridge, Elizabeth. John Lennon: All I Want is the truth. New
York: Penguin Group, 2005.
[4]
Marley, Bob. BrainyQuote.com, "Brainy Quote." Last modified 2013.
Accessed November 14, 2013. http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/b/bobmarley383272.html.
[5]
Billboard, "Bob Marley." Last modified 2013. Accessed November 14,
2013. http://www.billboard.com/artist/293509/bob-marley.
[6]
iamtwixietops, . Baggage Counter, "Les Miserables (Movie Review)."
Last modified January 18, 2013. Accessed November 14, 2013. http://www.iamtwixietops.com/2013/01/les-miserables-movie-review.html.
[7]
Oliver, Chad. Some Blues for a Trio. Composition and World
Literaure. Edited by Jerome Bump. Austin: Jenn's Copy and Binding, 2013.
[8]
Howard, Sounes. The Life of Bob Dylan. New York: Grove Press, 2001.
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