Sunday, September 2, 2012

The Power of Music

I've been wanting to write about my experience singing in a church choir in June. I've been INSANELY busy but finally some Sunday reading this morning in The Hidden Messges in Water prompted me to take a few minutes to do so.

I'm not a choir person. At least, I never have been before. I used to play the sax from the 5-7 grades and was actually quite good, but I quit because I was too embarrassed to take my big instrument on the bus everyday. That is one of the two life regrets that I have, quitting something so awesome, especially because my decision was motivated by insecurity.

I want to get on the top of the world and tell every teenager not to care what others think. If only I knew then what I know now. If only I knew then that no one even noticed my instrument nor were even thinking about it. Generally, people just don't really care what I do. Or what you do. They care what they do. So do what you love!

Anyway, since I was in band, I never got into choir. Nor was I interested in doing so. I love music and have always loved listening to music, singing music in the car and attending concerts, but not choir. In high school, I went through a punk rock and rock phase where I would go to those types of concerts at least twice a month. My friends and I--clad in metal bracelets and combat boots thinking we looked so hard-core but really we looked pretty poserific--would sneak backstage and meet the bands after every concert.  I tried crowd surfing. I could sing every word to all of those bands, some of them the poppy punk and others heavier with harsh lyrics and messages. Those years were a lot of fun and I have some great memories. Yet, I was pretty unhappy back then. I attribute that to several factors, and that is a post for another day, but partially it was some of the music I was listening to.

During my teenage years, I was hurting and I tried to distract from the pain through a variety of tactics, music being one. The more painful and hard the music was, the better it seemed to feel on the inside sometimes. For a minute. For a song. But ultimately, those harsh lyrics and beats weighed on me. They got into my mind and my heart and brought me down even more. They weren't healthy. I understand that now.

I still appreciate some rock and punk rock and many other genres of music, but I'm a lot more selective. I understand what those lyrics and beats can do to people, how much they can influence they have on how we think, feel and what choices we make.

Mararu Emoto's book The Hidden Messages in Water supports this belief about music that I've been forming for some time, a concept I've been taught at church my whole life but didn't let myself believe because I was in denial. Emoto took photos of the crystals formed from water after it was exposed to several contrasting messages such as love, hate, teamwork and music. The water crystals formed from exposure to Chopin's Etude in E major, Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake and Vivaldi's Four Seasons are some of the most beautiful in the book. They are masterpieces.



The ones resulting from being exposed to Chopin are magnificent little gold droplets and and look like jewels you could scatter around. The one formed from Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake is a rainbow--it's absolutely incredible, the most unique in the book. The four from Vivaldi's Four Seasons are all intricate and unique, even representative of the respective season.

Then there are some photos of the crystals formed from water exposed to heavy metal. It isn't really a crystal, but a huge ugly, dark circle. It looks like a deep infection in someone's skin if you put it under a microscope. Nasty. Similar to the experiment when exposing water to someone saying the negative phrase, "You Fool." Ugly, sick looking. I was so touched by these photos and the understanding that the music we listen to has a deeply impressive effect on our souls and our minds and the way we feel.

A perfect personal example is going back to the choir I mentioned early. I volunteered to sing in this choir because my roommate said it was the most beautiful music and brought her to tears. I was intrigued and went to the first rehearsal the following Sunday.

I was indeed the most beautiful spiritual music I'd ever heard and it brought me to tears too.

It was more than a choir, but a full orchestra with a narrator and soloists whose voices pierced the soul. The work is called the Lamb of God by Rob Gardner. Here is a link to the oratorio performed by the Spire Orchestra. http://www.spiremusic.org/lamb/. It was such a privilege to be apart of that. I love words but could never quite succeed in explaining the experience I had singing about my Savior and His love for us and our imperfections and need for Him. Wow. It still makes me emotional remembering that experience. We got to sing this absolute masterpiece in the Latter-Day Saint (Mormon) Conference Center in Salt Lake City, with hundreds of people in the audience. People said we sounded like angels. One of my agnostic friends even said he enjoyed it more than his favorite broadway play.


Here's a preview video of some of the highlights in the collection. Oh I love this! You can also look it up on Spotify to hear the entire songs, Rob Gardner Spire Chorus Lamb of God.





Here are some of the lyrics from one of my favorite songs in the collection: "Here is Hope"

He who healed our sorrows
Here was bruised and broken
He whose love no end knows
Here was forsake, left all alone
Hope did not die here
But here was given
Here is hope
Here is all compassion
He who was rejected
He knows well my longing
He so long expected
Carried our burdens
Bore every sorrow
Here is hope
And ours is the victory

Those are the types of lyrics and messages I want to internalize. To make my life the masterpiece that it has the potential to continue being, I know I must align all areas of life with my goal, which is to invite goodness, love, success and service. Music is a powerful influence and I will forever remember the crystals forming as I continue to make decisions about what music I will listen to.