Can
Music Change Your Life?
By
Deborah Ross
Can
music change your life? We see people moved by music at concerts, recitals, and
church, but does it change them? Titanic is an amazing movie. Everyone can feel
the emotion while watching it but when “My Heart Will Go On” comes on at the
end of the movie it all suddenly becomes so real. Every movie comes alive with
music. The Notebook, Finding Neverland, and Pride and Prejudice are some of the
few movies that continue to touch us because of their music. Though these
examples may have changed a few people’s lives, music affects us all in one way
or another.
Music has been
around forever. Cultures sing and dance in celebration or in sorrow. The African
tribes made music with their voices and drums. The Jews made music with harp
and lyres. The Scottish are known for their bagpipes. Songs have been passed
down from generation to generation in the Appalachian Mountains. My mom used to
sing me to sleep with the little old folk song her Grandma and mother sang to
her. “Marzy Doats” is an almost meaningless song but the fact that it connects
different generations of people together is priceless.
Is music solely
a form of entertainment or is it more? Maybe music is a form of art work. Who
knows music could even be the explanation of our dreams. Music is the one
common thing that connects each culture together. I look back on my life and
almost all of my memories include music. Whether it is my Memaw playing piano
and singing on Christmas, going to Indiana and listening to my family have a
jam session in a park, going to my first concert, or my first piano recital, my
life has been filled and blessed with music. It has changed me in so many ways.
Piano was my
first foray into my own personal music journey. I would bang on it as a kid
until finally I was able to take piano lessons. I still sing the song “Little
Robin Red Breast” that I learned early on in my piano career. Whenever I get
mad or sad I go to the piano and just play. I can get completely lost in a
song. I can play perfectly in a time of great emotion. Sometimes I play for hours;
other times I can’t make it that long and I will just sit there crying because
I realize even when I am enraged I can still make something beautiful. Music
can make you fall in love, whether with a boy, life, or just the song itself.
Music has a power no one can completely grasp.
The real
question I am faced with is does music change or just affect our lives? My
mother wanted to be a computer programmer but years later she ended up being a
violin teacher. She loves it and knows it is exactly where she is meant to be.
It did not turn her life around completely but it greatly affected her. Every
time I just want to give up on life, music is always there to catch me. It
brings me back to the reality that it will get better. For me it changes and
molds me, music does more than just affect me.
My
dad always talks of how being a DJ at a skating rink in Indiana helped him get
all of the girls. They would leave him notes on his car telling him to meet
them after work. Because of my dad’s gift for arranging music girls fell in
love with him. The movie Footloose emphasizes the importance of music in our
lives. Music brings us the gift of dance. If my dad never started enjoying
country music and country dancing my parents would not have met. They met at a
country western club and fell in love while dancing with each other. Music
brought my parents together, that changed my life because without that I would
not be here.
Music
can capture a person’s soul and every essence of life without saying a word.
Music is our unspoken thoughts. It can relay a feeling that words cannot even
express. My best friend’s parents fell in love with each other because of
music. Terri, my friend’s mom, was singing at church one day and her voice just
touched Jeff and at that instant he knew that she was the one. Before they had
even met he had known it was her because he fell in love with her voice. Did
music change their lives or just affect it? Would their lives be the same
without music?
Music is not
just an aspect of life; it is an expression of life. It tells timeless stories
of love, war, heartbreak, and bliss. I know music effects the lives of people
but does it truly change their life? Can a group of notes alter a person’s fate?
Can something as simple as a note turn someone’s dreams into reality?
