A Moment In Music

I was sitting on my back porch the other night trying to get the double beat down on my bongos (if your laughing then you obviously play the bongos and you know it was more of a practice then anything). I was sitting there banging away doing no justice to the beat I was trying to get. My girlfriend was there encouraging me along saying little things like “that sounded good” and “you almost had it”, when my neighbor showed up with his guitar to help guide me along when playing music.

It was a lot of fun and I learned a lot that night when it came to music. First he got me to find a beat that I was comfortable with, I found my rhythm pretty quickly with the help of Mark playing the guitar to the same simple beat that I was working on. When I was feeling the rhythm flow through my body escaping from my hands onto that coarse leather, Mark brought in another beat, a second beat that for now he was only playing, but it was not long soon after that I was throwing in those extra beats myself.

As the day slowly began turning into night with the sun setting its last rays of warmth on us… the air was full of music, music that said that this day will not end till its story was told. Never did I think that the story was ending, because before my eyes there the people came. Some of them came with their own instruments and some came simply just to listen. The power of music I sat there thinking!

As I sat there listening to the music of artists playing together for the first time I was in the moment, feeling the moment. Here and now the music plays, never again will we hear this music, it might be imitated, but it will never be duplicated. There we were, in the movement of music.

Often times I will sit there listening to music, thinking about what it means, what it means to me and what the artist’s message is. So many times I concern myself on what it means to me then to ever wonder what it might mean to someone else. Let me give you an example.

I am a sports fanatic that attends many sporting events a year. I go because I love the feel of the energy in the arena, and the hype of the local team as they try to become the best of the league. But between plays you hear the music over the load speaker. The longer the music plays, the more excited the fans become. Then the arena erupts in a “We Will, We Will, Rock You” chant as the music flows through their blood and the energy grows for their team. At the end of the game when the home team wins, you hear two songs, the first song is more of a chant these days but goes “nan nan nan nan, nan nan nan nan, hey hey hey, gooooodbbbbbye”, and the second one is from Queen “We are the Champions”.

Now to me and I’m sure to most of you, these songs mean victory. But to the opposing team, those songs that night meant defeat. It is truly amazing how much influence music can have with just one song or should I say the winning song.