In the All of Ever

First go listen to this piece of magic, just listen to the mastery, close your eyes. Listen for the blatantly obvious emotion, and let the music paint a picture in your mind. Yes it's 8 minutes. Listen anyway: Barber: Adagio for Strings, Original Version, Dover Quartet

Okay now you've listened to that, you must be informed that this song is literally my favorite piece of music in "The all of ever" as I once termed it. I have never met a piece of music that has touched me so deeply and completely as this one has. I am not one to choose favorites in anything. I just have a hard time with that, but in music, weird as it may sound, I have one. and it is Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings. The piece that link leads you to is the Adagio in its original form, written for string quartet. The piece was once the 2nd movement to a 3 movement piece for quartet. Later, the public loved the 2nd movement so much that he removed it from his larger work and orchestrated it.

But I am not here today to fangirl over a piece of music. Okay, to a certain extent I am, but also I need to say other things.

Music today has become very monotonous and sort of pattern following. That's not to say that there isn't good modern music, there is. I can rock out to the best of what the 21st century music scene has to offer, but emotionally there is not as much depth as I would love to hear. That's why I love a lot of classical music. there is emotional depth.

I would like to tell you about the first time I ever heard the Adagio for Strings.

It was the end of my ninth grade year. The last orchestra concert of that year and my orchestra was done preforming. After us there were the two orchestras from the High School. I was sitting next to a dear friend during the concert, and the Chamber Orchestra got up to play. They were the last, and the best, of the whole concert. I remember sitting there and as the first strains came forth I wasn't sure I could hear anything. I closed my eyes and for the first time I saw a scene instead of a bunch of whirling colors as I listened. Trust me, this was big.

I often close my eyes and relax and allow my brain to simply create when I listen to music, it is interesting to me what my brain can come up with. Sometimes I get psychedelic fireworks and other times I get whimsical wisps of colors. Rarely do I get actually constructed scenes in my head. But that night for the first time in my life I saw a scene.

I saw a girl sitting on the beach with a sunset in front of her. She sits there and she's later joined by a young man. I could not only see this, but I could feel the emotion. She was in a state of melancholy. and then the young man shows up and she isn't as melancholy anymore.

But the significance of the song for me isn't in the scene that gets painted in my head. It's the emotions I can feel building up inside me and inside the music. And then there is the climax. No matter where I am when this song comes on, no matter what I am doing, at the climax I cannot help but close my eyes and listen and feel. It is an involuntary reflex. it is a deeply emotional connection. I cannot deny it.

I've often wondered how I came to have such a deep emotional connection with a song within the first moments I heard it, and I can't quite explain it, but connection is both real and deep. I love that about music. It can spark deep and real emotions. It's incredible.

Music is pure emotion. It is those emotions that can't properly be explained by the mere human tongue. Words cannot do them justice. They must be put to music. Someone somewhere once said "Music is what feelings sound like". Music can touch us when nothing else can.

That's why music therapy works. Sometimes people can sing or dance when they can't speak or move. It will work wonders to allow people to do things they never thought they can do. Music can bring out the best parts of people, the most hidden parts of people.

And I think someones favorite song, or favorite kind of music can tell you a lot about who they are. Sometimes the most revealing thing about a person comes when you listen to their favorite song with your eyes closed.

You can tell what people are feeling, often by what they are listening to.

I went through an emotionally tough time earlier this year. At that time I almost exclusively listened to Twenty-One Pilots. I didn't identify with the suicidal thoughts, but I definitely identified with a lost sense of melancholy, I empathized with his feelings of sadness and fear.

I went through a phase where I listened to Jazz and Electro Swing. I was feeling jumpy, and full of energy. I was full of verve and excitement for life. I was feeling old-fashioned and ready to take on the new college life.

Music identifies with not only who we are, but how we are feeling and what we are doing. It is incredible the intense power that music has to identify with us and keep our emotions from being bottle inside where they can do damage. 

Music is a window into the soul. It is a peek into the very essence of who a person is. Music is a common thread within all of us, and it is a thread that binds us together regardless of race, age, gender or nationality. Music is simply incredible that way.