Music and Me Part I

Just the other day while I was on campus, a friend of mine was going to be playing a couple piano pieces for a music class and asked if I wanted to come. Being a big fan of music (especially classical) I couldn't refuse.
Music is a funny thing. The effects of music on my emotions and often times on my thoughts can sometimes be very subtle or outright grueling! I will attempt to describe some of the experiences I had that day.

As she played through her first piece by Chopin, I felt as if I were in a fairy world. Not a cheesy fairy world that inevitably pops up into every ones mind when the word is mentioned, but a far more interesting world. In fact, I think that "interesting" is the only word which describes the experience. It didn't seem to be good or bad....just interesting. Much like the fairy world George MacDonald talks about in "Phantastes" (although not quite so dark).

This all changed as soon as she began her Rachmaninoff piece. The disturbance of Rachmaninoff's soul translated so tangibly through his music it even makes the listener begin to feel his anger and strife. It felt as if my insides were being torn to shreds! I wanted to stand up and shout and run around like a mad man! This of course was a good feeling because it meant that she was playing the song well....weird, but true! :~)

And then finally there was Bach. The man who was forced to play by all the rules. When I listen to Bach, I often feel as though I should be sitting up straight and controlling my breaths for fear of being heard. It is like the feeling one reads in stories about school children who attended the old boarding schools. They have to wear the stiff collars, itchy jackets and uncomfortable trousers while sitting up straight in a hard back chair for hours on end. This is not to say that all of Bach's pieces are so hard to listen too (i.e. Jesu, Joy of a Man's Desire) but the majority does tend to be difficult at times.

This analysis seems to beg the question, "what then is the importance of music and should it be taken lightly?". As of late, I have literally gone on a fast from music. I have not been listening to it while in the car or on my ipod while doing school. Everywhere I look people have headphones in their ears. And it has begun to annoy me!! For example, one day while at school I was in the book store waiting to pay for some scantron forms. The person in front of me had his head phones in and was pretty much dead to the world. I began to watch him as we came closer to the front of the line and wondered if he would take them off. Although I was not surprised, but still just as shocked, he went through the whole purchasing process with his head phones in; never making eye contact with the cashier! Needless to say I was terribly annoyed and was tempted to reach out and pluck the head phones from his ears. (fear not, I was able to restrain myself!)

Music appears to have become such a noise maker for our society that I wonder if we have forgotten what it sounds like. Much less forgotten how to listen to it.

Thus, partly out of spite and partly because I want to relearn how to listen to music, I have been taking a fast from it. And until you actually try it, you won't realize how hard that is! I find myself suffering from withdrawals as I itch so habitually to turn on a CD and make some noise in order to distract myself from myself.

"Distracted from distraction by distraction" ~T.S. Eliot
(That still doesn't make sense, but it sounded like it fit! :~)

What I have learned from this I will explain in the next part of this two part series.