Music=Manipulation

I am a manipulator. Truly. Why? Because I am a musician. I make sounds, noises with my voice and hands. It sounds nice and all but in reality, I am a manipulator. At least I hope to be.

The other day, I came home from school, sat down at the computer and somehow ended up watching a video on youtube of the largest aquarium tank in the world with a certain song playing in the background. The song really caught my attention and I found myself listening to it several times. It was nothing too extraordinary, a simply melody, simple chord progressions, yet somehow it just grabbed me. I felt sad, disappointed, yearning for something and hopeful all in one rush. The song haunted me. I was different for the rest of the day. I was changed.

I applaud the musicians who played this song. They did their job well. The job of musicians c is to convey feelings and emotion, to make the listener feel what they feel. These musicians, I never went through what they went through, yet i felt it. For those minutes, hours, they changed me, they moved me. They are the manipulators. That's their job. To make me feel a certain way, whether it is happy, sad, hopeful or confused, that is music.

My close friends tell me I sometimes get too emotional. Not as in cry cry emotional over things, but in the sense that I take things personally and make a big deal out of them and act by my emotions. Maybe it's because music is my passion.

It's a weird way to think about it, but I want to be that manipulator. I want to move you, to have you understand without words what I am saying.

When I sing in church or at a concert or whatever, its all nice and great to be told, "Oh you sang beautifully" and all that jazz. I like it. That there is the mind speaking, however. My tone, pitch, and dynamics were good. Great.
However, infinitely more precious than that is being told, " You made me cry" or "You've inspired me." At that point, I know that is the heart speaking. I know how they feel me because tears and hope, these we do not control, the heart does.

I know that I can speak for others at this point. Right there, I know I've done well. I changed someone, if only for the night, the hour, the precious minute. Right now in the world, that may be my only impact but I know it's there, the audience knows it's there and for a moment, the air is pure magic.

12/11/09