They were fighting again. It had grown so commonplace now—less of a fright and more of an annoyance at this point, but our new puppy had a different point of view.
I watched her go from playful and clumsy to cautious and confused as the screaming continued. Eventually, she slowly made her way over to the corner where she sat with her back against the wall. She began to shake.
I didn’t have much power to help her—after all, if I could have stopped the fighting I would have done it years ago. But there was one thing I could do.
A tentative “solution”
“Come on puppy,” I said as I scooped her up in my arms. I carried her down the steps to my bedroom. She expected me to let her down back to the floor at that point, but I didn’t.
Instead, I sat, keeping her tightly in my arms. I began to rock slowly back and forth, and although we could still hear the arguing, I began to sing.
“Clouds above go sailing by, I’ve found my meaning in this life.” I bent my face down right next to hers and sang ever so softly.
It was a song that I had just heard a few weeks before, and some notes were too low for my voice to sing. It was far from perfect, but it was the best I could come up with.
I kept rocking and singing, “every day I love you more, and more”. As the song wound to its’ end, the fighting had not. But her shaking had. I let her back down to the ground and turned up some cheerful music, and we just hung out until the screaming had subsided.
It wasn’t this big revelation of a moment. Just a quiet distraction, really. A helpless solution to a bystander’s discomfort, but I never forgot that day. It planted a seed in me that could not be unlearned.
My own experience with music
As time (and adolescence) wore on, I started to distance myself more and more. I found that music was my comfort. Although my musical tastes seemed to be different from many of the people I knew, it didn’t seem to matter, because my songs kept me company.
I found a sort of belonging in music that I couldn’t find elsewhere. Each song was able to offer me a genuine sort of companionship that seemed lacking elsewhere.
As I got more entrenched in my teenage angst, I grew into deeper friendships with music. And then one day, everything snapped.
My best friend, music
It’s so cliché to say, but I got my heart broken. I was dumped, after two and a half years of a relationship that I thought would last forever, and I was devastated.
This guy was what I considered to be my rock, and without him I felt lost and panicked. There are certain times in life where you’re so upset that words don’t cut it. I was so hurt and scared, thoughts didn’t cut it either. That is to say, my brain just crumbled—I couldn’t bring myself to think much of anything at all.
I couldn’t eat, and I definitely couldn’t sleep. Instead, I played music to fill the time I would have normally spent on eating, sleeping, and having fun. I played a song on repeat, and laid there as I cried.
Music didn’t fix my problem. It didn’t take away the pain, but it was able to keep me company as I dug into it. Music sat beside me through the nights when I couldn’t sleep, and slapped a band-aid on my wounds so I could pretend to function during the day.
And as I was trying to piece my heart, my soul and even my mind back together, music was patient with me. Music provided me an outlet for pain, a channel for hope, and a glimpse of understanding that if I could just get through this moment, and then this one, and then the next, that soon enough I would find myself in a future life.
Moving beyond heartbreak
As I started to heal, music continued to be a big part of my life. But the role it played evolved quite a bit.
Although I was shy, I found myself getting pulled into performance. I signed up for some voice lessons in the next town over, and before I knew it I was part of a program “for singers and actors”.
My teacher and his wife (another voice teacher who ran the program alongside him) told me that their program would be a good fit for me, and they would love to have me. They told me that I would have to audition, but it would just be in front of them and one other man. So I did.
True to their word, it was just them and one other man. I got accepted into their program without a hitch. This surprised me, when I watched the other performers. The judges thought I was on par with this? I was flattered. And flustered.
The idea of going up in front of others to be watched (and judged!) terrified me. How did I get roped into this? Not only that, but it would be a weekly thing—singing, alone, for dozens of people. Can you imagine?
Getting over myself
I practiced so long for my first performance in front of my peers—I was wrought with nerves! I had always known myself to be a shy person, and this had been a big obstacle in my past. How was I to get over this?
Now, my voice teacher was having none of this. “You know,” he told me, “when you perform, people actually come so that they can see you perform. That’s kind of the point.” Ouch. That hit hard.
I was encouraged to imagine the best of my performance, as a sort of visualization exercise. I was told to picture the worst, in order to examine it. If I bombed the performance, was it really the end of the world?
None of these thought experiments shifted me. I found myself incurably self conscious. Even if I thought it would go well. Even if I knew that messing up wouldn’t be that bad.
I dreaded my performance. But I did it anyway. When I sang in front of all the other performers, I was terrified. And when it was over, there was this adrenaline surge that I had never experienced before.
Becoming a Performer
It did, in fact, become a weekly occurrence—singing on my own in front of everyone. The second time I had to sing in front of everyone, I was terrified. The third time, I was terrified. The fourth time, I was scared.
And over time I became more comfortable with being heard, being seen. It did something to my mind, having this weekly reminder that I would be seen and heard, in a way that friendships, therapy, and loved ones never could. Knowing that I would be seen and heard, by extension, got me being a little more honest in my speech, and self-expression.
I became, psychologically, a performer. Comfortable with being seen and heard. More accustomed to the idea that I might be noticed—and watched. Comfortable with speaking and singing in front of people who I had never met before. And all of a sudden, I didn’t identify as shy anymore. It just dropped out of my self-image.
Sharing joy, love and inspiration
Once I got over myself, I was able to set to work. So I started playing around with music, acting, dancing. I thought of performing as a sort of ultimate form of self-expression, a sort of fine line between an art and a science.
And I found out that by performing for others, I could send a very powerful message that they may not be able to hear otherwise. I could help them feel their feelings that seemed too risky to address when they were on their own. I could even bring people together who were at odds, just by putting on a show for them.
At that point, performing seemed like a sort of moral imperative. I would sing for anyone who would hear me, make my own music and dances. It had become a superior form of communication for me that many people were much more interested in listening to.
In many ways, I think music is a miracle of man. We have come up with a form of communication that far surpasses our languages. Very few people actually take full advantage of music’s capabilities in their daily life.
Accessibility of music
Yet music is a tool that we all can use to our advantage. If you feel your singing voice is less than adequate, you can learn to play an instrument. If you can’t write music well, you can use the music of others to communicate your story and your vision. And if you are able to read these words online right now, you have infinite music at your fingertips that expresses all sorts of situations and emotions, in ways that you have never even considered!
Music can help you get through a hard time, make up with someone you love, express your appreciation or strife. With music, you can strengthen your moral fiber, and stop procrastinating things that you know you need to get done. Music can transform you into the person you long to be, act as a bond between two people, or even bring you some new friends and companions. There is no end to what music can do for you, if you let it in your heart.
The end
These days, I still fill my time and my heart with music, and I make it for the people I love, the people I hurt, the people in between, and most of all, myself. I’m just one voice in a sea of beauty and uniqueness, and I kinda like it that way. I’m still self conscious, but just like way back when I had a puppy in my arms, I’ve got something to say. And my far from perfect voice and lips want to build cities out of my words, tapestries out of my lessons, and manifestos out of my love. So I write. So I sing. So I create. If you’re interested in my music, you can find it here on YouTube or here on Soundcloud. But if not, that’s okay too. Because the important part is finding something to listen to that resonates with you.
So for this week, my advice to you is simple. Fill your mind and your life with music. It decorates your time and little parts of you that nothing else can impress upon. Time and time again, it is the heart filled with music that triumphs.
