Music is Me

Music fascinates me. It always has.

For a brief amount of time, I majored in elementary education. A course requirement of Education 200 is to observe a special needs class. I challenged myself and chose to observe the severe and profound. Many of the kids I worked with were nonverbal, while others couldn’t recall their names. I remember one nonverbal student in particular who was always crying, yet I couldn’t tell if it was from anger, sadness or just frustration. I felt empathy for him as I did for all of the students. I couldn’t imagine the frustration of not being able to communicate your wants and needs with others. The thought nagged at me until I discovered their outlet…music.

Each Friday, the music teacher came to them bringing a CD player along with a collection of familiar CD’s for the students. Standing in front of the room, she sang along with the music. So did they. This was a profound moment for me. I’ve always loved music, but this is the first time I realized just how big it really is. Students who couldn’t recall their own name remembered the words to their favorite songs. The nonverbal students bound to wheelchairs laughed loudly, moving their heads back and forth along with the music. The crying student stopped crying.

Music is big. It’s universal. Music inspires, influences and empowers. It evokes emotion as much as it allows us to express emotion. Music remembers. It’s by our side, guaranteed to never leave us. Music is home. Music is us, and most importantly music is me.

So if you haven’t figured it out yet, music is the foundation of my blog. The idea of my blog is to post a song and relate it to life, sometimes my own, sometimes my observations of others. However, I’m not going to limit myself to this. Depending on my mood, I might do something completely different. I can, however, promise that music will always be the basis.