Tag Archives: music

“Go into the arts…”

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??????????photo by Karen Molenaar Terrell

Go into the arts. I’m not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or how badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something. – Kurt Vonnegut

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I love the Vonnegut quote above.  It expresses really well how I feel about the creative arts in my own life. I’ve come to feel that art is the purest expression of Soul, and I’ve found that the older I get the more important the expression of Soul has become in my life.  Photography, singing, writing – these things help me stay focused and help me stay sane. Literally help me stay sane. Looking back, I think photography was a big help in pulling me out of the whatever-that-was several years ago. When I’m out taking pictures I’m always looking for the magic – for the beautiful and joy-filled – for the “idea of truth”; and the other things – the things that would distract me from the beautiful and good – are stilled in my thought. When I’m out and about with my camera, the dialogue of mortal mind is silenced for a while, and I’m on a vacation from it.

In photography there’s that moment when the photographer spots something remarkable and captures it – to get that moment the photographer has to have appreciation for the beauty around her- she has to be able to recognize it when she sees it. And then the photographer takes home that moment and downloads it to the computer and does the art thing – crops and contrasts and highlights and saturates and leaches out the color until the artist in her recognizes that something has popped out that’s just perfect. And then she gets to share that moment with other people – gift an audience with that moment, too.

The audience is a huge part of the art – the people who read the books, or listen to the music, or look at the pictures, become, themselves, a part of the expression and experience.  When the audience members laugh or gasp at the right time during a play – they are working with the actors, helping them create their expression.  When the artist’s audience applauds or writes a review – laughs and cries and feels and learns because of the art – the audience becomes a part of the artistic endeavor, too.  🙂

In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy writes: “Mortals are egotists. They believe themselves to be independent workers, personal authors, and even privileged originators of something which Deity would not or could not create.”  I’ve found that when what I’m seeking in my work is applause or personal recognition – when I’m creating something to show-off and impress – rather than to share and express – the work never turns out quite right. It’s lacking something genuine in it. Something real.  It’s a stilted, self-conscious, self-indulgent, self-absorbed, SELFED and ridiculous thing.  It really stinks.

But when the work comes from the inspiration of Love (God) – from the beauty, joy, and kindness I see around me and just HAVE to share with everybody else – then it’s real. Then it’s WORTH sharing.

Whatever furnishes the semblance of an idea governed by its Principle, furnishes food for thought. Through astronomy, natural history, chemistry, music, mathematics, thought passes naturally from effect back to cause. Academics of the right sort are requisite. Observation, invention, study, and original thought are expansive and should promote the growth of mortal mind out of itself, out of all that is mortal. – Mary Baker Eddy

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“Music is the rhythm of head and heart.”

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Music.  What is it about music that touches us, reaches out and grabs us, brings tears to our eyes, makes us want to move, to dance, to smile? It’s elemental, isn’t it? There’s something about harmony, melody, and rhythm that connects us, somehow, to… well, to what I would call Soul, I guess.

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Divine Science reveals sound as communicated through the senses of Soul – through spiritual understanding. Mozart experienced more than he expressed. The rapture of his grandest symphonies was never heard. He was a musician beyond what the world knew. This was even more strikingly true of Beethoven, who was so long hopelessly deaf. Mental melodies and strains of sweetest music supersede conscious sound. Music is the rhythm of head and heart. – Mary Baker Eddy

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My husband and I recently experienced the great joy of hearing blues guitarist extraordinaire, Joe Bonamassa, at the Paramount Theatre in Seattle. From the moment the first note emerged from Bonamassa’s fingertips on the strings, to the moment the last note faded away, a giddy grin took up residence on my face.

And there was something really amazing about sitting in a theatre full of other people caught up in the same tide of inspiration. There was power in that room.

I am one of those people who believes there’s a meaning to life – a meaning greater than merely breathing, breeding, and consuming material things. And, for me, music and art – the things of Soul – are a part of what makes life meaningful.  Ray Charles said, “I was born with music inside me. Music was one of my parts. Like my ribs, my kidneys, my liver, my heart. Like my blood. It was a force already within me when i arrived on the scene. It was a necessity for me – like food or water.”

We’ve probably all seen babies who are bobbing up and down to music on their chubby little legs before they ever take their first steps.  And we’ve probably all heard babies singing before they speak their first words. (Mom tells me I was singing back to her when I was just weeks old.) Human beings seem to have a built-in appreciation and connection to music from their first days.  An attraction to music is not something that babies need to be taught. It comes naturally.

But giving children the skills and training they need to create their own music seems as essential to me as giving children the skills and training they need to write their own words and communicate in written language. Music is an important form of communication, too – in my mind, no less important than writing and reading in the education of a fully-formed and developed human being.

When speaking of education, Mary Baker Eddy, the discoverer of Christian Science, writes: “Whatever furnishes the semblance of an idea governed  by its Principle, furnishes food for thought. Through astronomy, natural history, chemistry, music, mathematics, thought passes naturally from effect back to cause.   Academics of the right sort are requisite. Observation, invention, study, and original thought are expansive and should promote the growth of mortal mind out of itself, out of all that is mortal.”

“Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and everything.” – Plato

“Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.” – Berthold  Auerbach

Joe Bonamassa at the Paramount:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzhpcaTn-YA