The Universe is Vibration
When it comes to music, we each have our own “first music experience”.
My first true introduction to music was through my mother and her evening routine of listening to records during the weekend. Those special evenings after dinner was eaten and everything was cleaned up (including me) I would join my mother in the living room to listen to music. On the surface, the evening activity had the ritualistic precision and solemnity of a tea ceremony. We would walk over to the living room sofa in an almost meditative state. As my mother continued over to the stereo system, I’d climb up onto the cushioned seat and sit, eagerly awaiting the arrival of the first notes to dissipate through the air. The stereo system was encased in a varnished cherry wood cabinet giving it the aura of a sacred altar from a lost civilization. The cabinet was massive. One section had the turntable, another had the radio receiver while the actual speakers were situated at either side in the front of the unit. As she turned the unit on, my mother would study her parade of vinyl albums and eventually pick out the evening’s special platters. She would proceed to take out the shiny disc, immense in mysterious infinite black and place it on the turntable. Upon hearing the needle landing upon the disc, I could feel my breath quicken and my earlobes slightly tense up in anticipation of the sounds that would emanate from the speakers. All different sounds would float out of the cabinet and swirl around the room like mist. These were sounds that spun tales, incanted spirits and decoded intuitive lessons from strange worlds that were much more colorful and thrilling than my 8-year-old universe could comprehend.
Pop anthems, torch songs, reggae, country & western, soul, calypso, jazz, funk, rock, disco, standards from the American songbook; all of these flavors seemed to be represented in one way or another during our evening listening sessions. The importance of all these genres was lost on me. There would be many nights to come, holed up in my bedroom captivated between headphones or my own two speakers before their significance would make any sense. However, in those moments, the past or future of those sounds didn’t matter. Only their present tense mattered. The moment of experiencing the stream of sounds pouring out of my mother’s stereo system was the most important thing in the universe. I wasn’t so much hypnotized as I was mesmerized and energized by the glorious noise. While I was vaguely familiar with the basic mechanics of “playing music”, I felt the stereo and the turntable were just tools of transport. I thought there was still more to this thing called music. I was convinced that there was a fascinating world of creatures actually inside the speakers creating the spectrum of sounds. If they tried to come out or were exposed to the outside world, they would perish. So it only made sense that I would have to go in. It wasn’t before long that I began to push myself right up against the vibrating meshed fabric and cool cherry wood paneling of the speakers; desperately trying to climb into the speakers and join that magnificent world.
That was my introduction to experiencing music. Swimming in the depths of my own sonic meditation. The “lessons” I learned those nights were--and still continue to be--as valuable as the countless hours and years of learning music theory and technique. I was lucky enough to experience the nurturing, magical power of music, and as important, I learned that the true language of the Universe is vibration. Music is true vibration. It rattles and disturbs us from the various levels of sleep in which we may find ourselves, during our daily dramas, or submerged at certain points in our lives—individual and collective. It is in this glorious disturbance that we (re)connect with ourselves, each other and twisting, turning tapestry that is life.
I hear it time and time again from so many different people, all walking different paths of their lives:
“Music IS the universal language!”
As with all past experiences in learning, or recognizing language, each new sound further shapes, sharpens my perspective a little more. Sometimes, the new sound completely smashes and redefines my perspective but that's the point, isn't it. Even when the sound may be immediately foreign to me, once I find the groove, the music pushes me a little further, keeps me buoyant and moving.