Music to my soul

If music affects you the way it affects me, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about when I say music can completely transport you to different moments in time. Music to me is almost like a time machine: it evokes all different types of memories and emotions. It can fill you up, overcome you, and bring you right back to a significant time in your past. Certain songs in particular can completely move me; even a certain key that a song is written in can produce different reactions and feelings. Memories of certain people immediately come to mind when I hear certain songs, or even artists. Jack Johnson is a good example of this for me. No matter what song it is, his soft velvety voice, accompanied by subtle underlying drum beats, and light carefree strums of a guitar always floods me with the same memories; reminds me of the same person, over and over.

I love how music can completely set the mood for any situation. Take a listen to some of the songs on my blog's playlist. They all have something in common: instruments. The sounds of violins and piano in particular coalesce to form a perfect symphony of moving melodies and harmonization. It sets the tone of how I want the reader to feel when they read my posts. Because it's how I feel when I write: moving effortlessly from one crescendo (i.e., story) to the next, one note (i.e., word) at a time. Think about movies for a moment... would it really be the same movie without the musical score? I think not. In fact, I think music makes the movies. Sometimes I wish life was like a movie in that we had our own personal soundtracks. I think it would make things so much more interesting, and exciting, and dramatic, and emotional! Could you imagine as you were trying to make a tight deadline, or speeding to get to work on time, "Chariots of Fire" was playing in the background?? Or if while you were moving in for your first kiss with someone you really like, the song "Take My Breath Away" from Top Gun came on? Or better yet, "Unchained Melody" by the Righteous Brothers (aka the love song from the movie Ghost if you didn't know). I mean, seriously... life would be so much more interesting... so much more colorful.

But alas, life isn't like the movies. We don't have personal speakers following us around on our shoulders, ready with the perfect song to play at the perfect moment. Sometimes, we just have to learn to make our own music, and follow the melodies of our own internal symphony. Hearts the percussion, breaths the strings, and our minds the composer, creating the soundtrack of our lives.