i_am_music puredream I am music... The buzz of the tires and the soft scratch of pencil upon paper, all music to my ears. Wind rustles passed my face and a car honks in the distance. There is a beat clicking somewhere to my left and I am sure a melody echoes behind me. I am sitting outside along a stretch of asphalt under a slightly warm sun and I am filled with music. Music is more than just the sounds you sometimes hear reverberating through various horns or string instruments. It is what you feel at any given moment, it is an experience; it is how you express yourself. If this is true then the statement, I am music, is also true. But of course I am music, it only makes sense. You too are music; your heart is brimming with it. Music is neither a pass time nor a hobby. It is a lifestyle. I prefer to wake up to the randomly selected radio tune in the morning rather than the constant beating drone. I sing in the shower and tap my feet while sitting. Never-before-heard songs play through my head on a daily basis. All music is an experience, it must be felt. It can feel warm like the sun upon your shoulder or terrifying like the shadows in a vacant house. The wonder that is music can make you feel anything. Music can take you soaring to the highest height you've ever been. I've been there. And it can take you even lower than you knew you could go. There is music everywhere. The most important thing one could ever remember is that you are never without music. Perhaps this is why so many people look to music for comfort or a sense of identity. Music identifies who I am. As I have already said, I am music. Have you ever looked in the eyes of a smiling child and seen the glow of innocence and pure happiness? That is music. Despite the obvious lack of "musical" sound within this scenario the pure emotion expressed through the child can be called music. After all, music is emotion. It is emotion in all it's raw forms and all it's incarnations. Music is everything you can feel in any situation. To be musical is to express yourself at any given time, all the time. Music is the journey of a lifetime and can never fully be realized during the course of one person's existence. (Though I'm sure many have tried and came close.) If you have ever experienced a calm or silence so deep and so intense you will know that even in silence there is music. Music is unconditional love. It is the ultimate companion. It can be reached at any time of the day, benefits you, yourself the most when it requires money, doesn't expect presents and even at points of heated argument will always love you in the end. All music asks of a relationship is a constant flow of love. "If I have ever loved, it was for music." -anonymous Can you love music? The answer is, yes! You can love music to the very depth and core of your being, right to where the music existed in the first place. I love music. I have spent most of my high school life singing in various choirs or drama performances, playing bass clarinet in band, writing songs and expressing myself as much as possible. Recently, while playing for the final performance at the Graduation Ceremonies on June 4th, I experienced the most elating and gratifying experience of my life. As we played the slow continuous beats of Pomp and Circumstance I reflected upon my three years of music at Scarlett. I did not recall the first songs that we played at our first concerts or the different exams all the music students complain about. But instead, I remebered the feelings I had every time I walked into the band room at seven o'clock in the morning. Seeing all the familiar and very tired faces chattering about who-knows-what and always knowing that here I belonged. In these mornings, when we all finally took our places and lifted our horns, our first sounds were not necessarily always beautiful by any standards but they always connected us. The connections to everyone in that room are the memorable part. The feeling of knowing someone on a different level other than just, "hey, how you doing?" is so wonderful. Many people wonder why the "band kids" are so close, but this is easily explained. Take any group of friends, they hang out together on the weekend, call each other, talk on the internet and share great times. Music students do all these things but their relationship extends to yet another level. We create music together. Almost everyday, we come together and work towards the ultimate highs and lows of music. We've been more places than most have ever known. Upon the stage at the Jubilee Auditorium, I remembered how it felt to be loved through the sharing of the music. Each note I played that day became harder and harder to grasp because tears streamed down my face. As the song drew to an end I realized that these were my final moments on the quest with these very dear people. This chapter of music was beginning to close. Now as I go on I take all these wonderful emotions I have gained in these three years. I learned what music is and how to love it, and tomorrow is only another musical day waiting for me. It has truly been a ride. Music is always awaiting the next passionate soul who will wrap their heart willingly around it and begin a journey. I will take music with me every step that I take for always and forever as, I am music. 040609 ... pete Music is intoxicating. When I sit there in Rasputins, in the Bayou, and close my eyes as the music rocks me back and forth as if I was sitting in a rocking chair I enter the realms between the notes. It lifts me up, and lets my emotions be free from the bodily constraints that contain them. Slowly the emotions form words. My lips move, though I don't say a word. I am singing my own song to other people's rythms and songs. I create my own lyrics that fit the mood of their music. It elevates me beyond the individual, beyond what people call the soul. It touches on the animistic throbs of the world. I enter the spirit world where there is no distinction but the waves of the ocean. Where each soul becomes a droplet of water. How many droplets are in the Ocean? They are all individuals, but they are never apart. They are never truly individuals. Lapping against the far coast the music, no the space between the notes, grants passion beyond qualititative measurement. It fills me, it fills US. And then the song ends. The high fades. I grasp onto the words, which are my only remember of what has just passed. I write them down. The poet within shapes them into lines and stanzas and cantos and cycles and epics and the great Cycles of my life. And the waves reside. I stand again on the near shore, alone. Opening my eyes I scan my friends faces. They are so unaffected. Well all of them but one. And now it is her turn to go up and sing. I brace my self for this experience again. For a return to that ruined Gaelic castle. She gets ready to sing Hallejulah by Cohen. And I am lost in her finger picking and voice. In the spaces between the notes and the words. In that silence that one can only truly appreciate in the presence of music. And I am united with that which is Wholly Other. The numinous returns and I am alive. My eyes close. The music rocks me as in a rocking chair, and the emotions rise, becoming sacred words, and I lap against the far shore once again... 040609 what's it to you? who go blather from