Nothing can move a person like music.
Think about it. No matter who you are, there is at least one song, or tune, or musical phrase that stirs you every time you hear it. A fleeting bit of a popular track from when you were young. The National Anthem played at the beginning of a sporting event. A nursery rhyme your mother sang to you. The Sesame Street theme.
Music is directly connected to our subconscious. It affects us on a level that we can’t control. It’s not intellectual, at least not completely. No matter how complicated a symphonic movement, it’s the feeling that we latch onto first. No two people can play the same song the same way. Every bit of knowledge and history, their hopes and desires, their pain and tragedy, are translated into every note they play.
Music is also conversation between the composer and the listener. This is what makes it so unique. What the listener takes away from the music may not be exactly what the composer was setting out to convey. Even if the lyrics lead you line by line through a story, the feelings stirred may be vastly different in the person receiving the information than the person projecting it.
It’s this individual experience that permits music to become a part of you. You will always remember your favorite song BECAUSE of everything surrounding the first time you heard it. Where you were, what you were doing, whom you were with, what time of year, how old you were: all these factors combine to create something that is totally and exclusively yours. In a way, you will always own that song, because of your interpretation of it.
There is a notion that every piece of music is part of one great song, a collective gathering and celebration of expression. It can be viewed as everyone bringing their own thing to a party, and everyone at the party being able to enjoy it. Someone can point to a pie they baked and say, “I made that,” but all the guests are able to partake. And every day, more and more people are showing up. As they come in, they bring their own thing. The new arrivals learn from what came before, but get to mix it up and add new ingredients, making something unique.
And, somewhere down the line, a new memory is born.
