food for thought or thought for food?

Zaireeka! Isolated sounds from four different sources are combined and meshed together forming a song, a tune, a CD track. The Flaming Lips experiment triggered this thought process: what is music? Is music different for every individual? Is it based on what can be heard in the music, or what the listener wants to hear?

I remember the first time I went to see a symphony perform. It was one of those occasions where my mother and I got dressed up—dresses, perfume, and polished shoes. Before the concert I was nervous, excited, and a little restless. The musicians came on stage and started warming up. The brass instruments flashed in the stage lights and cello players looked strained as they were attempting to maneuver their instruments to their designated spots on the stage. A single note sounded and all the other musicians played the same note. It got quiet and the guy that waves a wand around got in front of the orchestra. The music started. I was captivated by the violin players. The violin was beautiful—it had sound, technique, and class. For me, as a third grader, the music played by the orchestra was the beginning of a dream. It sounded like opportunity, dreams, imagination, and wonder. The music planted a seed.

Now ten years later, and after hundreds of violin lessons, music is one of my passions. I can play it, perform it, read it, hear it, and feel it. That night at the symphony embedded in my little third grader brain a new concept of music. Music is not just sounds and notes. It is a wooing process. The music flirts with the soul, the mind, and the heart. The chords, the instruments, and the rhythm altogether generate feelings, emotions; a state of being. No matter what kind of music—instrumental, rock, rap, alternative, or folk it conjures the spirit. It awakens within us a desire—a zaireeka.