playy

It was always confusing what they would say about it. It was clean, it was creative, it was comforting. It was always something similar, yet not entirely the same. There were moments when the notes would change to just a slightly different pitch that brought on the giddiness and euphoria of magic.

The music did that to her particularly. She was tall and would appear graceful if not for the bruises on her legs, showing into the klutziness of everyday life. Her long hair was always folded neatly into a plait that hung down her back, swaying every time she moved. She appeared normal, nothing particularly interesting until she sat down to the keys, spreading her fingeres over the ivory places.

She had been taught from a young age that music was a window to peer into another’s life. she had been shown how her fingers could dance smoothly across the board and create new sounds and feelings from combinations of notes. She had been enlightened that with the right pitches and the right depth, she could reduce someone to emotions that were worn down and raw. She could create beginning from middles.

She had not always been so fluid however. To start out, her fingers were slow and clumsy, frequently wobbling off of a correct space for one that was wrong, and just like that, the magic that would be trying to well up would be released, like water stockpiled behind a dam.

To begin with, she was pressured into playing the instrument. She didn’t originally want to read the black dots on the paper and apply them to positions. She didn’t want to observe the numbers and use according digits. She wanted to plunk away and create sonatas from her first go.

Many long years of relentless practicing taught her otherwise.

“Music cannot ever be something you do quickly,” her grandfather once told her. “It has to be something that you pour yourself into. In a way it’s frightening.”

She hadn’t fully understood what was so frightening about sounds at first, but as the years went on and she became more and more at home with the keys did she finally understand what he meant.

Music was about exposing your thoughts and feelings to criticism, sharing with others the joys and pains of everyday life. Songs could range from ecstatic delight of moving somewhere new to the brutal, heartbreaking reality of death. In a way it was about putting who you were down through sounds so others could judge them.

Looking back, she would readily admit that many musicians just did not comprehend that there is such things as good and bad music. It is how you go about deciphering the feelings and emotions, not about just using words as fillers for a melody. There were many people whom she had experienced playing who just did not click with the magic.

It was annoying and painful for her. She would sit down, pick up a pen and begin scribbling, thinking about the things that hurt her or the things that made her giggle and transpose it into something someone could create with their fingers. Something tangible that someone could share. She would caress the lyrics, pour in some steeped melodies and add the final ingredient. Soul. The last part was always the most important. Emotionless music was something not to be witnessed.

Music is not just about listening.

Music is feeling.

When explained, you just cannot understand it’s magnitude.