Sun, Feb 17
... Tune in E-flat minor
It's such an amazing release. I love writing; I love reading; I love just sitting with a friend and not having to say anything to be completely understood. Sometimes, though, the greatest release is just sitting down behind a piano, whether there are other people there or not. When I'm jamming with a band, just playing whatever, and going all out having fun with it; when I'm sitting by myself in an empty sanctuary with only me, the piano, and God's presence there; when I'm with Laura or another friend or two, just playing; when I have no music whatsoever, just my fingers and the piano and I go wherever they take me. After a while, my fingers get raw and sore, and my back starts to ache from sitting for so long, but my soul is refreshed and cleansed.
Sometimes, I just have to laugh. Sometimes, the power of God through the music is so overwhelming that all I can do is laugh out loud at the fun we're having and the intensity of the music. Sometimes, I have to cry. Sometimes the music releases such intense emotions that I can't help but weep at the condition of my own soul.
Sometimes there are so many emotions to pick from that I can't describe what I'm feeling? I can be exuberant, joyful, ecstatic, happy, cheerful, melancholic, blue, sad, depressed, apathetic, brokenhearted, gloomy, indifferent, angry, peaceful, furious, livid, disappointed, dreamy, or indignant, among many other things. Why, then, is it so hard to pick the perfect one that describes how I'm feeling? More often than not, I'm "not happy, but not sad. I'm kind of melancholic, but not depressed. There's a strange peace over me, but at the same time I feel kind of restless." Something along the lines of having twenty different adjectives floating around in my brain and heart all at the same time, all trying to get out, and none succeeding in becoming anything more that a jumbled mess.
There are times when the only way I can let out the emotions inside is through music. Just me, a piano, my God, my voice, my emotions, my soul, and an empty room do wonders for getting everything sorted out. Things come out in the music that words can never express, no matter how eloquent I am or how good my thesaurus is. Music transcends words.
You see, my way of thinking is that words are a way of extracting the emotion from the soul. I love writing, and I've sorted through many a problem by writing whatever comes into my head until it begins to make some sense of some sort, yet sometimes the feelings are too deeply embedded in the soul to be torn from their hiding places. It's impossible to articulate some things, no matter how hard anyone tries. Music, though, is an extension of the soul. In my somewhat limited experience, I've discovered that music does not try to remove the emotion from inside and make it understandable, music simply carries emotion outside the body. No one has to understand my music, and I don't have to follow any rules. My piano is merely the medium for what my spirit longs to make known.
And so, I will play, and I will always continue to play.
infinite || abyss
posted at 10:07 a.m.
