The Magic of Music

I don’t think I’ve mentioned it recently but- I have a deep and emotional bond to music. I don’t just mean listening to it either. I do enjoy the upbeat or sometimes melodramatic songs on the radio; and to be fair, that’s mostly what I have in my itunes catalog. But the music that always moves me, and can change me on such a deep level are naturally the classics. I mean, they wouldn’t have lasted for so long if they weren’t classic, right?

One of my favorite things to do when I’m alone is have classical music playing way too loud while I sit and am washed with the vibrations which ARE music. I haven’t done that recently. I’m not sure why, some combination of living where I don’t have public radio (my main source of classical music), and then just never having the right time while I was in the states, and before that I avoided music. I just couldn’t handle the way it moves my soul while I was putting my life back together. I must be in a really good place if I can withstand it now.

I’m not sure if it’s the same for everyone, but for me, if the music is made on a piano, guitar, violin or any stringed instrument it moves me more. Maybe it’s something about the way the vibrations are made, (and I realize that all sound and thus all music are vibrations, but the way that one note can overlap another while continuing a melody the way a piano can, is different then the one resonance chamber of any brass, or woodwind).

And it’s not just listening to music, it’s making it too. I have tried to learn a wide variety of instruments, none of them really stuck except voice. But that’s probably because you can’t really put that one down. (really, I started with the recorder then tried the viola, flute, saxophone, trumpet, oboe, guitar, piano and dum-beck(it’s a middle eastern drum). Singing is best for me because I’m not so distracted by my lack of skill as when I’m on an instrument.

But I’m shy when singing, the smaller the group the more shy I become. I often make my singing voice a little more plain than it really is when I know people can hear me. I don’t know why, maybe I’ve heard too many people that think they sound good and don’t want to come off that way. I just clam up if I know anyone is listening (even from another room). The shyness exception being singing in church and singing Christmas carols.

Also I have always mourned the lack of volume and umphf my voice has (or doesn’t). I wanted to be one of those big Broadway belters, or a sassy jazz singer with a voice like whiskey on the rocks. Also, not to sound pretentious, but, I miss going to the opera.

I have a fairly pretty voice, it blends very well, it’s mid range for a women. It really isn’t unique in any way, save I can stay on pitch while singing with others, or find a pitch in my head so I get my intervals right. The one thing I HATE hearing from choir directors or voice teachers is ‘you need to breathe more’. Really? You hear my speaking voice? I’m just quiet. And when I Do get some volume it’s not without it’s toll, I’ll lose my voice if I sing like that for too long.

But my voice aside, I have something in me that is happy when I make music, singing or otherwise. And I want to start listing to more classical music too.