The Power of Music
A friend of mine in Russia once asked me to share my thoughts on the power of music. That question is something that still sticks with me today. I’m not a musician, and I don’t really have a great understanding of music theory. I have had music classes and participated in several choirs. I have been an on-air dj for a couple of college radio stations; I even liked it enough to take on the position of station manager. However, I haven’t really figured out yet what the power of music is. Anytime I ask someone about the power of music they talk about specific songs and what they mean, but not really what or how the song makes them feel. I understand that aspect of music, of what the song means to you, I love music, but it seems there is something everyone is missing. So, what is it that all of us are missing?
I think there is more to music than just what it means to you, even though I used to use it that way as well.
Music has the power to cause emotions to well up within us. These feelings are gripping, often irresistible, and seem to come from nowhere. These feelings can color our moods, affect our perceptions and can affect our behavior. Who hasn’t, in an effort to gear up for a big game, cranked the stereo with your favorite rock song to pump yourself up? The indisputable fact about music is its power to evoke emotions. Music has the ability to inevitably tap the still and mysterious well of our emotions.
If I had to pick one favorite song, I think it would be “Insanity” by Oingo Boingo. This song has meaning to me on more than one level. Yes, the lyrics impressed me when I heard them. I hear a song I like and want to say, “He says what I am thinking” or something along those lines. It isn’t that we are lazy or uncreative; I think we sometimes just don’t know how to put our thoughts and feelings into words.
Anyway, the last line of this song says “I’d love to mess your pretty hair/ I’d love to see you dead.” I never focused on this line, but on the song as a whole. I played it for a friend in high school and she was offended. She picked out that last line and she thought I wanted to see her dead. She didn’t see into the song as a whole, she didn’t pick out the nuances of the music. All she could see were the words.
I didn’t focus on a particular line or phrase in the song, but the song as a whole, the confusion, or at least the confusion I perceived the artist was trying to convey. Different people can obviously see different meaning in the same piece of art. But there was something more than just the lyrics. It was something in the music itself that caught me the first time I heard it. It felt powerful; if you could focus the energy in that tune you could create with it or destroy. It wasn’t just a thought, “oh, I like the lyrics, he knows what I am thinking,” there was an emotional rumbling inside, a stirring of something I wasn’t aware of, something primal maybe.
A part of the greatness of music lies in its very nature, that all the elements form a unique wholeness which may not be entirely understood by studying the separate parts. Music is created from the heart and shaped by emotion. It is readily appreciated by the mind, without the need for formal knowledge.
It is kind of like in biology, when you studied about chemical receptors and how each receptor has a specific landing, or contact point, and it only fits in that point. That is the way a certain piece of music will interact with you. It is like that piece of a puzzle you have been trying to find for years and finally you find it and your puzzle is complete; so to, are you complete when you hear that particular piece of music.
Take the lyrics out of the equation and just listen to the music if you have to. Find something that truly moves you and makes you feel something. Something will awaken inside you, like some long dormant ancient desire, a remnant of your past, or some lost instinct. If you haven’t found that particular piece of music yet you will. You don’t have to look for it. It will find you.
I really enjoyed reading this post. Music has always been such an important part of my life. I can travel back through time from hearing a song come on the radio. When I hear ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’ by The Beatles, it takes me back to being about 3 years old. I can still feel the way my dad’s thumb would feel with my fingers curled around it while he danced with me. The music from Phantom Of The Opera will take me back to middle school when I sang the songs in Choir. Hearing certain Weird Al songs will take me back to your basement in AF when you introduced me to him. I will never hear Bring Him Home again and not feel the loss and pain that I felt that day in March. There are songs that I listen to specifically when I am sad that I know will cheer me up. When I’ve had a bad day at work, I’ll blast My Chemical Romance as loud as I can in my car and sing at the top of my lungs, and by the time I get home, all the negative energy that left with me from work, is gone and doesn’t follow me in the house. Then there are songs that just crush me when I hear them, When There’s Love At Home is one of them. My mother used to sing that and even though it’s a beautiful song, it reminds me of her choosing tropical islands over kids. Then sometimes I will find lyrics that just grab me and even though it might be just one line in a song and I might not care for the rest of the song, I will always add it on a play list because of that one line. Or just the opposite, there are some songs that I could care less about the lyrics, but it’s the music that I need to hear and I will tune out the vocals. I honestly can’t remember a time in my life without music. I have a love and appreciation for it that I think might actually be genetic. It was interesting for the last 2 weeks of March and the first few weeks of April, I really struggled with listening to music for the first time in my life. Maybe I just needed that time to be silent so that I could mourn, but it’s amazing how much more my heart heals when I let the music touch my soul.