When I was a child, I loved this particular part of church services: opening the hymnal as the organ’s chords filled the space.
The sanctuary filled with voices of all qualities singing beautiful hymns, and I felt wafted away on the promise of possibility.
Kirtan, Qawwali, and Buddhist chanting affect me the same way. And wonderful new music can be found that transports through hip-hop beats and ambient sound.
At some point recently, I noticed that I prefer music with incomprehensible lyrics or vocalizations. Why on earth would I rather NOT understand the verbal message?
I meditated (thought) about this a bit, and noticed that music conveys its message not only through the precise meaning of the words, but through the many layers of beat, melody, harmony, surprise, tone, timbre, key, note… every abstract bit and aspect of sound and mood flows into music to open our minds.
I’ll share my personal favorite: Rachid Taha’s music. I know a little about him, and have all of his albums (that I can find). I understand a little about the situation of Muslim Algerian ex-pats in France. But unless the words are in French (or I look it up online), I have no idea what his lyrics – literally – mean.
And that’s okay. It actually helps that I’m clueless.
When I listen to Taha’s music, I receive this: an underlying chorus of joyous tenacity that tells me that life is worth living, no matter how angry we get, no matter what we lose in the process of following our dreams, no matter what kind of crap we have to put up with along the way.
Music offers this by re-routing our rational, left-brain thinking and pumping all we’ve got into the right brain…
Into the body.
Music engages the entire body, to dis-engage us from our sense of “is that all there is?”.
Instead, music gives us possibility.
So go on and tap your fingers and toes, and sway side to side. Let music take your entire being to the play and places you really want to go.
(For more esoteric explanations, please check out this post and this post. Thanks!)
Excellent! i will check out Taha’s music… I love music from around the world; especially meditative music. :-)
Eliz
Thanks, and have fun! Taha is far from meditative, lol! Think punk bellydance influence and a little Clash, and that might be closer… ;) His latest album Bonjour has some beautiful, gentle pieces. I also love Rasa, which is sort of spatial chanting, more Hindu influence… Have a great day, Eliz!
Hey there! Enjoyed this, thanks, good read. I’m supposed to be at Meditation with the Bhrama Kumaris at 5:00 this morning…it’s 1:00! Missed it yesterday but reading this, gonna make sure I get there today.
How wonderful! Sit on, man, and enjoy!
I love classical music for this reason. It’s between me and the music… no storyline to follow or narrative messages. Just music!!!
Exactly! It’s such a gift, isn’t it? I remember as a student, when the class would discuss the meaning of a piece of poetry or music… I nearly always missed the “conventional” meaning. It’s nice for me to begin to understand how that does not matter – what matters is the meaning it all has for us.
When I’m stuck in a hard place, and my mind refuses to play nice, I usually turn to my dark ambient playlists. Lots of Drone, and whatnot. Calms me down, and sets my thought patterns running rampant again.
Good read.
Yes, it really works! I thought of you and your playlists a lot as I was writing this… I’m glad you enjoyed it!
Y’all please be sure, when you have a moment, to check out the link to hip hop… It’s some wonderful music by a friend (Matt Pelosi) – he would love some hits! He’s given me 13 tracks to use for videos… so much to do, so little time, lol! Very talented musician and composer, and his music personifies what this post talks about.
Wonderful post and wonderful music Leslee. Thank you for the introduction.
I have long been a fan of music of almost any kind. The words often detract from the overall experince as much as they contribute. I often seek out foreign music simply to enjoy the human voice without being burdened by all of the thoughts that the words bring.
I have your suggested link playing as I write this and it is beautiful and lively. Were it in English it would also be distracting. As non-English, it’s perfect – for me.
Thank you so much.
– Phoenix.
I’m so glad you enjoyed the links! Thank you!
[…] see what humor can do for you. Or check Lesleehare’s blog at https://lesleehare.wordpress.com/2011/02/01/music-opens-our-minds-2/ to experience the joy of […]
I think in the exact same way…I always prefer the music more than the words…and the more incomprehensible the words are, the better they sound. My all-time favourite is Enya, and all I can make out of the lyric is something high pitched. Will check out taha’s music.
It is great to find a kindred spirit.
I love Enya too, for the same reason! And then there are the Cocteau Twins, good old 80’s… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FHu9hzPpTA&playnext=1&list=PL36DBB5B4759148C9
[…] to lesleehare for giving me the idea for this […]
Very insightful post! I agree that music has the ability to transcend words and engage us through so many different sensations and feelings. Cool stuff!
I’m glad you enjoyed it! There are actually 3 articles related to music (two are on my Buddhist blog), and they get more esoteric, lol! (I think there are links to them in the first post, please let me know if you cannot find them :) It’s nice to meet you!