Sitting on the train today, whilst reading a chapter of Schopenhauer called 'The Metaphysics of Music', I stopped in mid-flight of thought, and stared out of the window and smiled; for Schopenhauer had finally told me why I love music. Yes, I also happen to love movies and books and paintings and poetry - but music, ahhh music is different!
Only music can move me to an emotional crescendo. A U2 guitar solo by the Edge recorded live and on my mp3 player, has the singular magical effect; on a dull Monday morning on the station platform, of 'moving me' beyond the physical realm I am occupying. The shimmering electric guitar seems to rise up into a capacious empty sky - taking me with it. You are literally transported - heart, soul and mind, to a place deep inside you of a billion possibilities - a billion stars flickering in the night of your soul. The music gives you wings. It's an illusion to think that what you are experiencing is outside of you. It's not. It's inside of you. Your inner being! That's what music does! It strums the strings of your inner self and brings it (your inner self) to the surface. Your feelings become evident to yourself and perhaps to others. Music makes you naked. Why do you think 2 lovers are so enraptured by a jazz trumpeter? Why do you think it is that random people on an underground train can be made to feel acute embarrassment by a guitarist playing a love ditty to all of them? Because the music brings to the surface those inner feelings of love and passion and desire; which in public, we repress.
With me music does many things. It inspires me. It gives me ideas. It draws forth from the chaotic froth of my inner self. A self, that even I; contemplater as I am, cannot access. It plants seeds that sometimes grow into archaic monsters and sometimes into weirdly wonderful flowers. Suddenly, through listening to a particular piece of music, I am overtaken with a hypnotic and obstinate desire to travel somewhere far. Far, far away. Music can do that. Makes me wanna do things! Before I stick on those headphones I'm just an ordinary accountant on my way to work. But somewhere, in my journey, I become an adventure seeking superhero! Dying don't matter any more. I just want to see things. And write about them later. Music makes me feel like that. It acts on a level beyond deliberate conscious knowledge. Some may say; I know Schopenhauer would, that of all the mediums of art, it is music, that speaks the truth of how we are feeling. I agree.
There is nothing better that captures the feeling of a world of unsampled possibilities then the soaring opening guitar of U2's 'Where the streets have no name'...it starts off as a faint jingly jangly sound that reminds me of street-lights reflecting off water, and ends up making you fly - skywards.
Purists working for NME or Q-Magazine may denigrate certain music for its lack of sophistication, or for not being 'in' right now - but does it matter? If music can move you - then who cares what the critics think. For as far as you're concerned, the music has done its trick. And the trick is to wash you up and tumble you about in a soapy bubbly rainbow coloured lather of emotion and feeling. To make you feel. To make you live. Love. Learn. And Explore.
Only music can move me to an emotional crescendo. A U2 guitar solo by the Edge recorded live and on my mp3 player, has the singular magical effect; on a dull Monday morning on the station platform, of 'moving me' beyond the physical realm I am occupying. The shimmering electric guitar seems to rise up into a capacious empty sky - taking me with it. You are literally transported - heart, soul and mind, to a place deep inside you of a billion possibilities - a billion stars flickering in the night of your soul. The music gives you wings. It's an illusion to think that what you are experiencing is outside of you. It's not. It's inside of you. Your inner being! That's what music does! It strums the strings of your inner self and brings it (your inner self) to the surface. Your feelings become evident to yourself and perhaps to others. Music makes you naked. Why do you think 2 lovers are so enraptured by a jazz trumpeter? Why do you think it is that random people on an underground train can be made to feel acute embarrassment by a guitarist playing a love ditty to all of them? Because the music brings to the surface those inner feelings of love and passion and desire; which in public, we repress.
With me music does many things. It inspires me. It gives me ideas. It draws forth from the chaotic froth of my inner self. A self, that even I; contemplater as I am, cannot access. It plants seeds that sometimes grow into archaic monsters and sometimes into weirdly wonderful flowers. Suddenly, through listening to a particular piece of music, I am overtaken with a hypnotic and obstinate desire to travel somewhere far. Far, far away. Music can do that. Makes me wanna do things! Before I stick on those headphones I'm just an ordinary accountant on my way to work. But somewhere, in my journey, I become an adventure seeking superhero! Dying don't matter any more. I just want to see things. And write about them later. Music makes me feel like that. It acts on a level beyond deliberate conscious knowledge. Some may say; I know Schopenhauer would, that of all the mediums of art, it is music, that speaks the truth of how we are feeling. I agree.
There is nothing better that captures the feeling of a world of unsampled possibilities then the soaring opening guitar of U2's 'Where the streets have no name'...it starts off as a faint jingly jangly sound that reminds me of street-lights reflecting off water, and ends up making you fly - skywards.
Purists working for NME or Q-Magazine may denigrate certain music for its lack of sophistication, or for not being 'in' right now - but does it matter? If music can move you - then who cares what the critics think. For as far as you're concerned, the music has done its trick. And the trick is to wash you up and tumble you about in a soapy bubbly rainbow coloured lather of emotion and feeling. To make you feel. To make you live. Love. Learn. And Explore.
