Musicality

When I was a little girl, I would lay on the living room floor while my mom played the piano.  She didn't play piano often, but when she did, it was magical.  Her hips would sway on the piano bench, the garage sale rug would hum beneath my small body, and in pure bliss, the room would fill with the deep, rich energy of those first measures Claude Debussy's Claire De Lune.  This is and will always be one of my favorite childhood memories.

Today I helped a former student revise her college application essay.  The topic requested she write about her passion in life.  Without pause, she decided to write on her passion for music.  As I helped her re-write and restructure her essay, I kept thinking about my own passion for the most acoustic of the arts.  

I love to sing.  That, without tools or aid, I can create something beautiful with only my body as I was born with it.  I love voices in harmony, twining and braiding around each other in an intricate dance.  I love the tuning of instruments before the conductor even taps his baton, the potential in all those runs and scales, the anticipation for those first notes, of the waterfall of notes that will follow.  It is a visceral experience, the way music moves inside my skin, goosebumps rising on my arms.  And there is little else in this world that can match that.  I love rhythm and syncopation, that a good beat can sway my hips without my conscious control.  I love that a theme in a work of art can be taken in the direction of genius, echoes of it repeated in the unique and unexpected.  And so, I say it out loud.  I love music.

Music, in all its diversity, is the soundtrack of a human life.  It is a thing we feel.  We decide, almost immediately, whether we like a song or not.  When life gets chaotic or unfocused, a song reaches to us, reminding us of that summer or that day, or altering our mood completely.  It fills every corner of our memory, it jingles us to sleep at night, sometimes annoyingly so, but it is always there, moving us.  

I love music.  I miss music.  Long ago in my life I would sing in the choir, I would practice the piano (though I never seemed to improve much), and I don't anymore.  Somehow it has been relegated to the car, the shower, and hymns at church.  I'm done with all that.  I need to look for more opportunities to put music in my life.  Because I'm thankful for music, but am I really showing that gratitude?  

What about you?  How has music impacted your life?  What is your favorite song and why?  And any good iTunes recommendations?  Because 99 cents is certainly worth all that music has to offer.