Music Heals!

I have a fairly extensive music collection as you can well imagine. Music is my everything, my every waking moment of my every day. If I’m not writing it, I am listening to it or producing it and doing digital editing for others. I sucked at Math and Science and was able to obtain a passing grade overall in High school due to having a heavy number of credits in the arts. I was involved in the visual arts, on stage etc and have done a lot of commercial acting, teaching on camera scene study right up to casting but music is where everything in my soul lives. Acting was a choice…painting or drawing was a choice. But music is an appendage that even if I tried to get rid of it, it would return like twitch grass.

Without music, I would not be alive. I have been suicidal in my life (NO, I have not been suicidal in years, I am fine!) and in those really, really tough moments, cranking my speakers or at that time ‘walkman’ (lol) made the difference to me surviving those moments, days, weeks, months and ultimately years. Between music and friendship, life has value.

As I am writing this, I have Chopin in my stereo. My first instrument is piano and Chopin was a favorite of my mom’s growing up. I like it because it’s a beautiful haunting darkness with shimmers of hope and light.

In many of my music CDs, you would open them to find sticky notes inside. I often jot down thoughts and feelings inside of something that struck me at the time, or happened in one of the moments. I get a lot of joy re-reading them later on. Sometimes I grab the CD out without re-reading the notes and sometimes I stop and look.

With my recent broken heart in losing my kitty this weekend, I went for my Chopin CD and saw the sticky note inside. This is what it read;

“Filthy sat through all of #4.
5 made him leave the room, then he came back, looked at it & got pretty tired.
#10 made him take notice again.
2:22 of #12.”

It’s a 62 minute CD with 12 songs. It’s the only CD he’s ever ‘listened’ to any part of. Music didn’t bother him, on the contrary he sat near it a lot. But this was the only CD he looked directly into a speaker and tilted his head while listening to it . Other than that, the only other audio-related thing I can remember him reacting to was the low tribal drum you would sometimes hear on the TV show Battlestar Galactica and a very few moments on 24 might make him glance over. However, this was the equivalent of a cat being intrigued by a bird’s nest outside your window. It was pure enjoyment for him. He absolutely loved it.

So let me talk about this song #4 on the Chopin CD. It is 6:59. So that is quite a length to grab a cat’s attention. I remember at the time thinking he just loved it and smiling to myself. It was very cool. Now, the thing about most classical music is I generally put it in and just enjoy it. I don’t always know their names unless it’s something like ‘The Barber of Seville’ or something very memorable. Most Chopin songs are long names with numbers, so they don’t exactly stick in your head. I also have several Chopin CDs, so it can vary what is on them.

Well after reading my sticky note today, I decided to see what long-winded name was attached to the song Filthy loved so much. Here’s how it read;

4. ‘Polonaise no.6, op.53 “Heroic”’

Seriously, how hard do you imagine it was to not burst out in tears?
It’s pretty much one of the coolest moments ever.

My favorite parts of life are the things science cannot explain. But of course, there are those who feel better when every mystery is solved and a stiff lab-coated, detailed explanation is apparent. Being the artsy, spiritual type I am, I’d rather not completely realize everything. Why would I want an explanation to deplete my spirit?

Call it rose-colored glasses or horse-blinders. I’ll take either one over a lab coat.

Thank you so much again for all of your love!
Karen :)

“Simplicity is the final achievement. After one has played a vast quantity of notes and more notes, it is simplicity that emerges as the crowning reward of art.” ~Chopin