Thursday, December 12, 2019

The Power of Music


We shall today be speaking of tunes, rhythm, symphony, and melody in terms of music, 'Raw' music. Music possesses the ability to lift your spirits, make you calm, cheer you up, align your overall mental state into a more comforting position. Rarely does one realize but our subconscious mind is attracted to rhythm and melody. If you don't feed your brain and soul with tunes, then your subconscious naturally makes you move towards activities where music is involved.

For example, you may think you really want to watch a film, but through my analysis, I have learned valuable lessons and would love to share them with you. Everybody knows that films have ample of background music, but no one knows what makes them literally feel the 'scene' and why they want to watch more films. It's the background music, the suspense fueled tunes, the spirit-lifting melody, the mind-calming lyrics, the natural rhythm of wind instruments that makes you morph into the characters in the film. Let me break this down for you.

We are in a generation where uniqueness is abated by the monotonous happenings in one's life. It is a very subtle move played by society, intending to partially control our consciousness so that we do not curb their individual growth. You do the same thing every day, travel in the same vehicle on the same road to your same office to meet the same people and come back to the same home in the same vehicle on the same road to the same people, that's why your brain and the neurons within it are not getting enough opportunities to fire themselves in all directions, which is also why you think just like another ordinary person. Your brain has been programmed to follow routine tasks with aplomb so that you don't fall out of sync with monotony. Now, we should know that music is played at multiple frequencies and these frequencies are supposed to induce a multitude of emotions within us, such as fear, happiness, exuberance, melancholy and many more. One fact is that Hitler while making public announcements on loudspeakers would set the sound to be released at a specific frequency which induced fear in the people. Sadly, we depend on people either directly or indirectly in order to activate any emotion within us.

Vattakanal, India


The secret for me is, I depend on music to activate my emotions and that is a one-way process, unlike its predecessor. I'd like to conclude by telling you how music activates any emotion you wish to summon.

When you listen to rock and roll, you're blooming with a zeal for enjoyment in life.

When it's jazz, you're calm as a bird and you groove.

When it's country you get peaceful and thoughtful.

When it's slow and the lyrics denote depression then you get melancholy.

Each genre has its own impact on your mind. Those half played, highly prolonged notes in jazz when heard, send waves to your brain which in turn send signals to your nerves all over your body and that energizes you to begin the groove, sing along and feel the voice of the singer- basically, it ignites an emotion which you would otherwise depend on other living beings to ignite for you.

Every song you hear has its own story, its own composition, its own melody, and its own meaning. That's what makes it friendly to you in the process of exercising your brain with undiscovered fortes.

Monday, December 9, 2019

Harmony


He lay down, flat…. by default looking straight up into the vault of heaven. He felt the grass poke him on his backside; it produced a kind of sensation which mesmerizes any living being. He sensed the wind, feeling it brush across and all over his body, through his clothes, swaying through his thin strands of hair, the cold breeze was generously embraced. His body rippled in shivers, but the kind of shivers that you crave. The shivers of thrill.

This will surprise you later, but he literally ‘heard nature’, not just the sounds of wind and shards of swirling glass, but that of birds, insects, crickets and squirrels in unison, the kind you rarely hear in sync while slogging through your day to day lives in the city. Probably the city keeps you so occupied that your mind has a blockage towards actions, happenings, and sounds that do not contribute to your immediate tasks. Thus, the obviously audible sounds of nature are restricted by your mind. An absolute form of silent communication he thought, feeling so much, hearing so much, living with infinite joy and love in the moment and for the moment respectively. Verbal sounds were not necessary, neither were they present.


Harmony is in the air


He saw the sky, shades of blue; bright and dark patches and shapes. This calm soul was so immersed by now, he could see the clouds form shapes in connection with the constant change in direction of the wind. He smiled, a smile of purity and simplicity, the kind you see often on a vacationing retired senior citizen. The only difference being that the latter had to go through a whole life of struggles, unfulfilled promises, and the complete cycle of ups and downs to ultimately look back and utter the words “I never needed a reason to smile”.

Then came me, the socialite, discovering this aura of extreme amounts of positivity around him. I wanted to feel like he did, to sense the undisturbed and untouched serenity within. Little did I know this man was Deaf, Dumb and handicapped! He never had to hear the gibberish we common folk speak, he never had to hear arguments, and neither did he ever have to explain himself to anyone. What music was to my ears was nature to his soul.

There I stood once again, assured that there are zero absolutes in life. The intricacy of moments in life is flexible, we can take it where we like, when we like and as we like. We need to realize the power of our mind, learning from the ones who we believe have nothing to offer and are not naturally gifted. Avoiding them is the first mistake leading to our downfall. Philosophy is true medicine. Uncertainty is the doctor. They come hand in hand.

Life cannot be so dull, if you do not open the door for light to come in, who will?

-Vattakanal, Tamil Nadu