Music is an art, a feeling, and a refuge. It has the power to lift up a soul or cast it into sorrow. It is a song of hope or a tune for all things past. It is the life of the people and the words of the angels. It is an entertainer or an irritator, a lover or a nemesis. Music is a creature of infinite guises, but in whatever form it chooses it is still moving, meaningful, and touching.
Wherever music comes from, and no matter how it makes us feel, it always originates in the soul. Not necessarily in your soul, but in someone’s. The composer believes in the music he writes, feels it, breathes it, exudes it from his very being. He then passes it on to musicians who take it upon themselves to perform it to their utmost capability. It is elation for the musician to play, to feel the music coursing through him, to hear the beautiful sounds he creates. People stop and listen to exquisite music such as this. It moves them just as it moves the artist performing the piece. The music eases the mind and soul, gives rests to those who are tired, and hope to those who need it. One needs no other tools for enjoying music besides one’s self and perhaps a good ear with a little taste.
For the musician who improvises his music, the song he creates takes on a shadow of his soul. It gives him release to his emotions, an escape from reality for as long as he continues to play. For him, he is baring is soul to the world, if the world even stops to give him a brief moment to play. But it does not matter if anyone listens, for it is for the love of creating music, the love of self-expression that he plays, not for others. If they hear him they may wonder at his impromptu compositions, but for the most part they leave him on his own. It is his world for as long as his song endures, and it gives him freedom to voice his sensitive spirit, which he can hardly express otherwise.
There are few people that do not enjoy at least some form of song or rhythm. If the person is not the performer, then they are the audience, the listener, or the observer. Many times they feel just as moved to joy or tears as the artist himself. Depending on their own mood they might pick and choose their music to fit. It may give them time to hide from the world, to become lost in the song, to have time to think. It is an escape, a release. They have music to calm themselves by: soft, quiet; and music to block out the world: loud, obnoxious. They find that they become lost in a world of sound, inspired, calmed, angered, but in a world in which no decisions need be made, a time to think.
No matter whether you are a musician or a listener, music has the power to evoke feelings that are rarely felt otherwise. In today’s society people find it easier to block out such emotions, but to play a song they find themselves removed from the daily hubbub and taken into a realm of notes and rhythms in which feelings and thoughts are free to roam. With the world rushing past the mind and body need time to regroup and heal and a song may just be the answer. As it might be said, music is good for the soul.
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