Every song I listen to connects to some memory or memories for me. I know for other people it's often smells that connect to memories. But for me, every song I hear brings back images of specific times, events and people. The older a song, the more complex those memories since there are usually more than one memory associated with each piece, but often it is the most intense memories that I associate with a song. I was listening to my iTunes library the other day and each song flooded me with recollections. This song reminded me of the break-up with a seminary boy-friend. That song reminded me of an old friend of my youngest daughter. Another reminded me of a specific high school dance. One reminded me of travelling to see a man I was dating for a short six months before meeting David. Another reminded me of dancing in my parents' living room when I was a little girl. Another reminded me of my sister when she was in high school... Again, each song was tied in to these strong and powerful memories. I found how I felt about each song had more to do with the kind of memories each invoked rather than the qualities of the song itself.
The downside of this is that there is a whole library of songs that are associated with our nightmare experiences in Ohio that I cannot listen to. Most of my iTunes library, actually, was bought and downloaded during that time: it was a way of escaping as well as processing while I was going through terrible times. The music was helpful and healing at the time, and so I listened to my music a great deal. But now those same songs that brought meaning, peace, and healing are connected with hard memories. There are some exceptions: the songs our praise team sung fill me with a positive nostalgia and fond caring for the folk in that mid-week community. But others... Sting's If On a Winter's Night - I listened to that over and over again during the first nightmare Christmas that our world was flipped on its head. Each Christmas since then I have thought, "Well, this year there should be enough time and distance from all of that, that I can listen to it again. After all that music is so beautiful!" And each year as the first song begins to play, a panic attack starts and forces me to shut it off for yet another year.
The upside is that as I go back and listen to songs that call to mind even earlier experiences in my life, hard memories, while still there, are often tempered with other memories and with the positive resolution of whatever challenge I was facing at the time. In other words, the songs change from being reminders of hard times to being bearers of memories of positive times of growth, of movement, of maturation. I also think there is truth that we remember the positive more than the negative generally, and as time goes by, more and more positive memories surface in response to those pieces about times that once were dominated in my thoughts by harder events. Music, then, marks that transition for me, shows me growth in my memories as well as in my person.
How much more this becomes true for me when I am actually creating the music myself: playing piano, flute, guitar, singing: making of music also ties me to the past. The difference in making the music is that I can alter how I play it, how I sing each song or each phrase, and in the altering, adjust not only how I hear the music, but also how I understand the stories that connect to it. I can change and grow through the changing emphasis on different words, different phrases, different parts of a piece of music.
The power of music! It brings healing, it points to healing. It can also be a catalyst, calling us to face memories that still need our attention and care. Within each phrase there is transition, and a reflection on the movements of our lives. Within the words, there are stories to be told that mirror our own experiences and call us to look at and describe them in new ways. All true art reflects aspects of life, music no less than the visual arts. Music gives us a lens to frame and to understand our tales, our journeys, our values. When we create the music itself, it also gives us an outlet of expression and a way to tell our stories and share our journeys that can touch others as well. The making of music can create the new memories and new stories that link us not only to the music, but to one another and to all creation.
I am deeply grateful for the power of music as it breathes through my work, my play and my living.
(As a postscript, I am looking for new music for my library at this point in time. What are your favorite pieces of music and what pieces touch you, give you life, give you joy?)
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