What Music Means to Me

Not a Rant, Just a Roll of Thoughts....

I get goosebumps. The kind you get when you hear the perfect note, or the truest lyric, or the most amazing harmony. I get goosebumps.

I know we all get them from time to time, but I think I get them more than most. I do listen to a lot of music.

Music moves me. Makes me happy, sad, introspective, and motivated. Takes me somewhere else and then throws me back into the moment.

Listening to lyrics make me a stronger person. How? Because it gives me confidence and comfort to know that I'm not the only one feeling the way I do. When a lyric rings true to me, I know thousands of other people must feel the same way... and that's comforting. Whether the lyric is about love, war, frustration, life, suicide, working, writing, love lost, money, jealousy, passion, poverty, history, the mundane, or the exciting, I feel better knowing that other people feel those things, too.

The emotions that can be created through the voice of the instruments alone, without lyrics, are sometimes more powerful.

Though, listening to music makes me jealous. And angry. Angry at myself for being so lazy as a child that I didn't learn the language of music. How to read it, write it, feel it, to dream in that beautiful language. There are millions of nuances, timings, and tones that I can appreciate but not replicate. Practice.

I often close my eyes and just listen. Especially during a music video - I prefer to interpret a song myself through the music and the lyric. Videos seem to be a cheating way to interpret (or misinterpret) a song.

Live music takes me to another realm altogether. Since I perform myself, when I watch someone else perform, there is appreciation and admiration simply for their presence.

I realise now that I watch the stage differently than a non-performer. I listen to the music differently. I take apart the song now - I never used to do that. I listen for the bass line. I notice the variety of guitar sounds. I hear the high hat and the snare and can pick out a triplet with ease. I think about the arrangements and wonder about alternatives (not that I could create them).

Forever I'll be learning and improving and I can't imagine a time when I'm not feeling like there is significantly more learning and improving to do. I'm hypercritical of my own performances and I'm always striving for the perfect take.

Only recently, I realised that, because of all of these things, I am a musician.