A six-letter word called ‘music’
It enthralls, it excites; it reverberates, it re-ignites; it delights, it develops; it conspires, it configures,
Words. A deliberate and conscious arrangement of some alphabets which can lend incredible value to what is to be conveyed.
Tunes. A rhythmic arrangement of some sounds that has the innate capability to express more than those sounds could individually express.
Combine words with tunes, and the product is divine. Perhaps, that’s the reason why ‘music’ has always amazed mankind from the very dawn of civilization. It has the virtue of winning hearts and engendering hearts to miss heartbeats. It has the quality to unite people who may not have any other common denominator. Music, in its most simple definition, is a reason for existence of those two little organs which support spectacles. Or maybe, it is a spectacle in itself!
It’s surprising that it can be the most convincing instrument of peace, and can also be the most disastrous war-cry. It can portray unbounded love and can also state the most gruesome hatred. It can result in a canopy of calm for the senses, but can also be the centrepoint of the whirlpool of thoughts. It can construct, it can destruct. It can make, it can break. It can convince, it can confuse. It can ennoble, it can demean.
A song can be interpreted in more ways than one. Our mood and the frame of mind further tend to bring out various propositions and derive bountiful meanings of what the song wants to convey.
Music means something to everyone. Moreover, the same song can mean something different to every pair of ears that hears it. Earphones carry a plethora of emotions through them! A piece of wire has the power to alchemize thoughts altogether. To a music lover, it is just an additional body part; a seventh sensory organ. Our phones always contain some songs that we never listen to. However, we never delete them. The same is a metaphor for certain people in our lives — we may no longer long for their company, but we are somehow too reluctant to delete them from our memories.
The songs we listen to, and the pattern and the frequency of listening to them, also convey a lot about our behavioural aspects. A robust manager, who considers Fayol a deity, may have a pre-structured playlist for every possible mood he is likely to develop. A carefree human, on the other hand, may just use the ‘shuffle’ function and let the algorithm decide which song will come next. Some tend to switch the genre with the sun’s movement: spiritual songs in the morning, soft melodies in the afternoon and rock songs towards dusk. Some are monotheists who tend to follow only one singer or one particular lyricist while some are secular and are open to every possible singer they come across!
It’s wrong to assume that only songs constitute music. Music is a baby’s laughter, the chirping of birds, the swooshing breeze, the sweet melody of a roadside flute seller, the thundering of clouds, the mystic sound a page of a book makes when we turn it… the list is just endless.
Moreover, music, in itself is dynamic. A song can be interpreted in more ways than one. Our mood and the frame of mind further tend to bring out various propositions and derive bountiful meanings of what the song wants to convey. No two people think in the same way, and consequently no two people listen in the same way. The grey cells often offer diverse interpretations, and this adds to the beauty of words. Without necessarily being puns, some words carry unalike meanings — what better can a lyricist desire? And that’s why ‘music’ is a six letter word — five which we can visibly see, and the sixth letter being what we hear between the lines!
We all are here for a purpose. And we also hear for a purpose!