Music is one of the most universal languages going. Not joking - you play any song or tune and I can guarantee you will bring people together from all walks of life. Hippies, rockers, emos ... they'll all come together and enjoy music. However, it can be so much more than that. Music can bring back memories of a loved one, a breakup, a death - any event in your life can be tracked by a piece of music.
Take the song "Carry On My Wayward Son" for example. I can still remember the event that triggered my love of this song - an episode of Supernatural in which the song is played. I was watching it with the father of my child and I was four months pregnant at the time. Or the song "Roll Alabama" by Bellowhead, to which my son was born. A sadder example is the song "Sound of Silence" by Disturbed, which was played at a friend's dad's funeral in 2017.
Music has the power to evoke any sort of emotion, which is something that I love. As an Aspie, I often find it hard to express my emotions in a way that makes sense and/or gets across to the person I'm talking to. Music, therefore, is often my means of expressing this. I'll send somebody lyrics or a YouTube clip and say "listen to this" or "read this", and the idea behind it is that they listen to it and understand what I'm talking about. A lot of the time it isn't clear, but I usually explain the concept behind it so that people understand.
The other thing I love about music is just how beautiful it can be. A great example of this is "Distant Land" by John Rutter, which remains my all time favourite piece of music to listen to. The harmonies are really well balanced and the whole piece of music evokes a sense of longing that is resolved only when the piece ends. Another good example is the Pentatonix cover of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah", which is another beautifully done song. The arrangement utilises all five of the vocalists, and body percussion, to create a beautiful piece of a capella music that sounds incredible and is incredibly uplifting.
Music therapy is, therefore, my favoured method of healing from the darker times that occasionally dog me. When I'm depressed, I'll usually put on some heavy rock music or symphonic power metal (which also helps when I'm writing - more on that in a second!), or if I'm happy I'll put on some pop music. It's a vast spectrum that I could honestly talk all day about, but I'd probably end up boring and/or confusing a lot of people!
However, one area that I really benefit from utilising music in is my writing. I often find that I create playlists for books that I'm writing, or particular scenes that a certain song fits. The song "Dance with my father" by Luther Vandross, for example, plays a key role in any poetry that I write, and I created a 193-song strong playlist for my debut novel Lady Cannibal. My second novel, Never Surrender, doesn't quite have a playlist yet, but the novel itself keeps evolving so I'm not overly bothered by that. My poetry collection also doesn't have a playlist, but I am slowly getting one together.
The power of music never fails to amaze me with its ability to evoke emotion. At the moment, my favourite emotional song is "Say Something" by A Great Big World and Christina Aguilera, which never fails to make me cry. The lyrics anad the harmonies just marry together so well that it brings a tear to my eye, and the music video is incredibly emotive as well. What I love the most is that it also inspires my creative streak and enables me to write the more depressing scenes in my novels, or the scenes that involve any form of loss or separation. I always find those scenes hard to write because of my past, so using music to inspire those feelings allows me to express the characters' emotions in a more coherent way than relying solely on my own experiences.
What are your experiences of music? Any favourite songs? Tell me your experiences below!
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