Listen to the music. What do you hear?

We hear music every day. On the radio, on TV, on our phones, on almost every video we watch. Jingles of commercials, latest hits on the radio, TikTok and YouTube sounds and more. 

 

But when do we ever sit down and really appreciate music? 

 

Music is usually convenient. You listen to it in the car when you’re going someplace so you don’t sit in silence. You listen to it working out or doing house chores. But when’s the last time you carved out time in your day to actually listen to music and hear it? 

 

The Kiwanis Thunder of Drums Drum Corps International competition was last Tuesday in Mankato; my mother, sister and I went. For those unfamiliar with DCI, it’s like a professional marching band with no woodwinds. So you have amazing brass and percussion sounds and a color guard performing outstanding field shows. 

 

I was in the Waseca Marching Jays in high school, where I fell in love with marching band. My family fell in love with it coming to all of my shows. So deciding to go to the Thunder of Drums was a no-brainer, and it had been a long time since I’d seen a well-performed field show. 

 

I realized how lucky I am to be in a community, and surrounded by communities, who love and appreciate music and bands. I watched as different bands from all over the country came on throughout the night and blew my socks off. I sat in the bleachers, soaking in the rolling waves of smoothing brass sounds that echoed off the bleachers and watched, mesmerized, as performers moved in sync to create different shapes and designs that ebbed and flowed with the moving of their bodies. 

 

These sounds are like no other; I am emotionally moved every time I hear them. I feel it in my soul, in my whole being, and a lot of times, listening to the amazing sound brings me to tears. 

 

One performance was centered around dawn and the rising of the sun. It started off slow and softer, not hard-hitting like some bands, and quietly grew until I was swept up in the moment. Hopeful notes blended together and danced their way to my ears, where they sent a picture to my brain of sitting on a mountain watching the sun rise. 

 

I felt like a main character in a movie having a moment doing just that – watching the sun rise at the end of a harrowing time. I was everything and I was nothing. I was the main character and the sun, the breeze of air that brushed my face and the pebbles at my feet. I felt as if I was a gliding, smooth river and yet a roaring fire. 

 

Isn’t it crazy how music can make you think? Make you feel? I allowed my imagination to stop seeing what was on the field and just feel the music, see what I was doing on the inside. It was fantastic. 

 

Then the music stops and you wake up, applauding with a standing ovation along with everyone else. Bravo. Life feels hopeful again and you remember what a blessed life you are living, despite all the trials and pressures of the world, of society. For one moment you can lose yourself in the experience, in the feeling of something more than you. 

 

So next time you listen to your favorite song, or a pleasant melody, try to stop and really take in the notes. How does the sound make you feel? Is the bright trumpet making you feel upbeat? Does the guitar tell you life is good? I don’t know, you tell me. 

 

My Determination: “Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent.” ― Victor Hugo