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In Which the Savage Beast Is Soothed
Sep. 4th, 2012 05:41 pmA little over 34 years ago, I was annoyed with the world. Why was I stuck in this useless body with an overly gassy digestive system? Why were there so many SENSATIONS? Rough textures and hot and cold and bright and moving and loud? When it all became too much to bear, just one thing could calm me down: my dad (or, The One Without Milk) would sit me on his lap and play the piano (or: That Huge Thing In the Corner).
That was IT. It made everything make sense-- or, it made sense and blocked everything that didn't make sense out. It opened up my brain and convinced me that maybe life was worth living after all.
Okay, I don't remember that. I'm only assuming based on what I've been told, and from the way I still feel about it. Except not sitting on my dad's lap. And as an adult I came to the shocking realization that my dad is actually a worse piano player than me, which is saying something.
I'm still especially partial to the piano, but it's music in general that does it, and my tastes get broader all the time. Well, broader AND pickier. I'm not sure how that works, but it's true. GOOD music (that's it, that's the kind I'm talking about: broad in style, picky in quality) seeps through my body like a drug, calming and energizing at once, doing something inside my skull that I can physically FEEL-- like the top of my brain lifts up to let it all inside.
I've been meaning to write this post for quite awhile, but it's changed over the past few months, probably as the Zoloft kicked in. It WAS going to be primarily about the Depression Mix I made in high school, and how I use music specifically when I'm down. But it's BIGGER than that. Music not only brings you up when you're down-- or wraps you comfortingly in empathic melancholy itself-- or calms when you're anxious-- or energizes when you're lethargic-- it also fills with joy when you're already doing all right. Music is the voice of God-- it's order and beauty out of what could be chaos. It's the purest of art forms: BEING, not just representing; HAPPENING, not just made once to sit there.
Even when I started writing the post those months ago, I knew it was bigger than the Depression Mix theme. I wrote the following for an opening anecdote, but it's really nothing like the Depression Mix at all, except for the Feeling Better Through Music part, and maybe that's why I never finished the post as planned:
My college radio station, when I was there in the late 90s, had two afternoon shifts every weekday-- four hours a day five days a week-- because the kids of our generation were probably the only teenagers in history to, in large numbers, prefer the music of our parents' generation to our own-- devoted to a Classic Rock show called "Afternoon Archives." That was the show I did for six of my eight semesters there, and I made a point of tuning in to support the other deejays every other time I was free. Once I was having a particularly glum day-- I can't remember why, maybe I was just in a mood-- but I recall I'd just got back to my room from math class, dumped my bag in a huff and dropped into the computer chair, switching on the radio on the way.
I can't remember the exact songs now, but they ROCKED. One after another. As the first was coming to an end, I felt let down, that the next song couldn't possibly live up to it, but the next song turned out even MORE awesome. And so did the song after that. And so on. It was like the deejay KNEW exactly what music I needed to hear just then! The effect was so amazing that I had to call the station just to tell him so.
"THANK YOU," I said emphatically.
"You're welcome," he said. "While you've got me on the phone, is there another song I can play for you?"
"I don't know, you're doing such a great job... maybe some Hendrix," I decided, figuring something Purple Haze-y would fit my mood all right-- though I wasn't sure it was QUITE what I wanted.
But he played "Voodoo Child," which I hadn't even considered (maybe because I didn't actually own it myself at the time). And the moment that catchy little riff of an intro crashed down into that massive storm of electricity and drums, I'm pretty sure my jaw literally dropped. This was...EXACTLY...what I needed. The deliberate tempo, the pounding of the instruments, grabbed my heart like a paranormal paramedic performing CPR from the inside, filling me up with energy and life. The minor key, the angry intensity, channeled my bad mood into a defiant "YES!" I grabbed the phone-- me, the one with the calling-people-on-the-phone phobia-- and nearly dialed the station again, just to tell the deejay "OMG! HOW ARE YOU DOING THIS?! HOW ARE YOU READING MY SOUL?! YOU ARE THE MOST AWESOMEST DEEJAY OF ALL TIME!" But I thought I might come over as a BIT too much of a psychotic groupie, so I let it go.
...Another post I've considered writing for months is one about What makes someone a Geek FOR something-- or, the various levels of fandom-- or something. There's a reason my Internet username is Rockinlibrarian. I'm geeky in many ways, but MUSIC --particularly rock music, but any kind of music (my dad certainly wasn't playing rock on the piano all those years ago)-- is one of the two topics on the very top of my Geekout List. It's a subject I feel very very VERY --very, and also very strongly about. Now, I've been out of the loop, lately. Other people who might be considered LESS PASSIONATE on the subject know a whole lot more obscure bands than I do anymore. Maybe it has to do with linking to new music on the Internet? Because I spend a lot of my Internet time without speakers. Or time. But whatever it is, I almost feel like I'm unable to claim the term "Music Geek" anymore, just because so many people seem to be a lot more well-listened (that's the music equivalent of "well-read") than me.
But that reminds me of something that bugged me in college. I had a lot-- as in, probably a majority-- of friends who were music majors. I was not-- I was first English, then Elementary Ed, because I knew I'd become a librarian eventually (other half of username. See? See what I did there?). Now, I don't think they ever outright said this, or even insinuated it, or even thought it... but I often felt the music majors had this unfair pretense of OWNERSHIP of music. They all loved music SOOOO MUCH, and so they majored in it. Of course that doesn't HAVE to mean that not majoring in it means you love it less, but it still ate at me. I was sometimes AFRAID to geek out about music in case I'd be looked on as an interloper or something, Not a Music Major. ...which was crazy. Maybe that's why I put so much energy into my radio show. And the church choir. One of my best friends and I were in the church choir together at college-- she had this amazing bird-like Soprano 1 voice-- I was a Soprano 2, and her roommate, who also happened to be my best friend from high school, a rich contralto-- one of my favorite memories is of the three of us walking around campus singing Mamas and Papas songs in harmony-- none of the three of us was a music major, but we loved to make music, and... okay, I'm getting to the point now...
Music is something anyone can and should do. Sure, some people are more talented than others. Some people have more training than others. But to leave it JUST to the professionals? No. It should be done all the time, by anyone, for no particular reason! It's participatory. It's FULLER than other things. It uses more of the brain. It is prayer, even coming from atheists. In all honesty, one of the times I'm absolutely sure I heard God talking to me-- not in the sense of "hearing voices," but in the sense that one of my own voices in my own head seemed to be coming from a much wiser and bigger source than me-- it was when I was feeling hopeless and depressed and a complete mess, but I was trying to sing along at church, and what I heard-- or sensed-- or felt, in words, was just: "I like to hear you sing."
That means everything, really. It doesn't mean I have a holy vocation to be a professional musician. But it means that when I raise my voice in song, I'm alive, I'm one with creation, HARMONIOUS. It means don't be afraid to let it all out.
And I think I got off track again. I started off talking about LISTENING to music. I had planned to write about the effects LISTENING to particular kinds of music has on me. Maybe I still will. I'll go into the thinking behind the Depression Mix and how I would change it up today, and talk about the other sorts of music for other sorts of times. Today is a day for laying out the basics. Or, laying down the beat. We'll get on with the jamming, later.
That was IT. It made everything make sense-- or, it made sense and blocked everything that didn't make sense out. It opened up my brain and convinced me that maybe life was worth living after all.
Okay, I don't remember that. I'm only assuming based on what I've been told, and from the way I still feel about it. Except not sitting on my dad's lap. And as an adult I came to the shocking realization that my dad is actually a worse piano player than me, which is saying something.
I'm still especially partial to the piano, but it's music in general that does it, and my tastes get broader all the time. Well, broader AND pickier. I'm not sure how that works, but it's true. GOOD music (that's it, that's the kind I'm talking about: broad in style, picky in quality) seeps through my body like a drug, calming and energizing at once, doing something inside my skull that I can physically FEEL-- like the top of my brain lifts up to let it all inside.
I've been meaning to write this post for quite awhile, but it's changed over the past few months, probably as the Zoloft kicked in. It WAS going to be primarily about the Depression Mix I made in high school, and how I use music specifically when I'm down. But it's BIGGER than that. Music not only brings you up when you're down-- or wraps you comfortingly in empathic melancholy itself-- or calms when you're anxious-- or energizes when you're lethargic-- it also fills with joy when you're already doing all right. Music is the voice of God-- it's order and beauty out of what could be chaos. It's the purest of art forms: BEING, not just representing; HAPPENING, not just made once to sit there.
Even when I started writing the post those months ago, I knew it was bigger than the Depression Mix theme. I wrote the following for an opening anecdote, but it's really nothing like the Depression Mix at all, except for the Feeling Better Through Music part, and maybe that's why I never finished the post as planned:
My college radio station, when I was there in the late 90s, had two afternoon shifts every weekday-- four hours a day five days a week-- because the kids of our generation were probably the only teenagers in history to, in large numbers, prefer the music of our parents' generation to our own-- devoted to a Classic Rock show called "Afternoon Archives." That was the show I did for six of my eight semesters there, and I made a point of tuning in to support the other deejays every other time I was free. Once I was having a particularly glum day-- I can't remember why, maybe I was just in a mood-- but I recall I'd just got back to my room from math class, dumped my bag in a huff and dropped into the computer chair, switching on the radio on the way.
I can't remember the exact songs now, but they ROCKED. One after another. As the first was coming to an end, I felt let down, that the next song couldn't possibly live up to it, but the next song turned out even MORE awesome. And so did the song after that. And so on. It was like the deejay KNEW exactly what music I needed to hear just then! The effect was so amazing that I had to call the station just to tell him so.
"THANK YOU," I said emphatically.
"You're welcome," he said. "While you've got me on the phone, is there another song I can play for you?"
"I don't know, you're doing such a great job... maybe some Hendrix," I decided, figuring something Purple Haze-y would fit my mood all right-- though I wasn't sure it was QUITE what I wanted.
But he played "Voodoo Child," which I hadn't even considered (maybe because I didn't actually own it myself at the time). And the moment that catchy little riff of an intro crashed down into that massive storm of electricity and drums, I'm pretty sure my jaw literally dropped. This was...EXACTLY...what I needed. The deliberate tempo, the pounding of the instruments, grabbed my heart like a paranormal paramedic performing CPR from the inside, filling me up with energy and life. The minor key, the angry intensity, channeled my bad mood into a defiant "YES!" I grabbed the phone-- me, the one with the calling-people-on-the-phone phobia-- and nearly dialed the station again, just to tell the deejay "OMG! HOW ARE YOU DOING THIS?! HOW ARE YOU READING MY SOUL?! YOU ARE THE MOST AWESOMEST DEEJAY OF ALL TIME!" But I thought I might come over as a BIT too much of a psychotic groupie, so I let it go.
...Another post I've considered writing for months is one about What makes someone a Geek FOR something-- or, the various levels of fandom-- or something. There's a reason my Internet username is Rockinlibrarian. I'm geeky in many ways, but MUSIC --particularly rock music, but any kind of music (my dad certainly wasn't playing rock on the piano all those years ago)-- is one of the two topics on the very top of my Geekout List. It's a subject I feel very very VERY --very, and also very strongly about. Now, I've been out of the loop, lately. Other people who might be considered LESS PASSIONATE on the subject know a whole lot more obscure bands than I do anymore. Maybe it has to do with linking to new music on the Internet? Because I spend a lot of my Internet time without speakers. Or time. But whatever it is, I almost feel like I'm unable to claim the term "Music Geek" anymore, just because so many people seem to be a lot more well-listened (that's the music equivalent of "well-read") than me.
But that reminds me of something that bugged me in college. I had a lot-- as in, probably a majority-- of friends who were music majors. I was not-- I was first English, then Elementary Ed, because I knew I'd become a librarian eventually (other half of username. See? See what I did there?). Now, I don't think they ever outright said this, or even insinuated it, or even thought it... but I often felt the music majors had this unfair pretense of OWNERSHIP of music. They all loved music SOOOO MUCH, and so they majored in it. Of course that doesn't HAVE to mean that not majoring in it means you love it less, but it still ate at me. I was sometimes AFRAID to geek out about music in case I'd be looked on as an interloper or something, Not a Music Major. ...which was crazy. Maybe that's why I put so much energy into my radio show. And the church choir. One of my best friends and I were in the church choir together at college-- she had this amazing bird-like Soprano 1 voice-- I was a Soprano 2, and her roommate, who also happened to be my best friend from high school, a rich contralto-- one of my favorite memories is of the three of us walking around campus singing Mamas and Papas songs in harmony-- none of the three of us was a music major, but we loved to make music, and... okay, I'm getting to the point now...
Music is something anyone can and should do. Sure, some people are more talented than others. Some people have more training than others. But to leave it JUST to the professionals? No. It should be done all the time, by anyone, for no particular reason! It's participatory. It's FULLER than other things. It uses more of the brain. It is prayer, even coming from atheists. In all honesty, one of the times I'm absolutely sure I heard God talking to me-- not in the sense of "hearing voices," but in the sense that one of my own voices in my own head seemed to be coming from a much wiser and bigger source than me-- it was when I was feeling hopeless and depressed and a complete mess, but I was trying to sing along at church, and what I heard-- or sensed-- or felt, in words, was just: "I like to hear you sing."
That means everything, really. It doesn't mean I have a holy vocation to be a professional musician. But it means that when I raise my voice in song, I'm alive, I'm one with creation, HARMONIOUS. It means don't be afraid to let it all out.
And I think I got off track again. I started off talking about LISTENING to music. I had planned to write about the effects LISTENING to particular kinds of music has on me. Maybe I still will. I'll go into the thinking behind the Depression Mix and how I would change it up today, and talk about the other sorts of music for other sorts of times. Today is a day for laying out the basics. Or, laying down the beat. We'll get on with the jamming, later.
