Music is a life saver. Music leads me out of myself into a place where I can be whole without trying.
I’ve been a trumpet player since I was 8 years old. Even during the fifteen years that I only touched my horn once or twice a year, I was still a trumpet player.
When I was 17, I remember being in a band performance, and feeling that shiver crawl up my spine and out the top of my head. I didn’t know it then, but that was the energy the Chinese call chi (breath). I have since learned that everything in our bodies starts with our breath. That energy running up my back was a powerful explosion of chi, and I have since felt it thousands of times through music. It can happen through other openings as well, but music is the most reliable.
Now that I know what it is, I can understand what is happening, and I can recognize it as an indication that my thinking mind is shutting down and my body mind is opening up. When I think without words, I can experience the world directly, with no mediation of what we usually think of as “thoughts” and “words.”
I just am. Purely in the moment. That’s where music takes me, reliably and easily. From this point, I can interact with other people on this level of direct connection. I become aware that I am not separate from others—or at least my fellow bandmates—sometimes it might feel like more than that. But we start thinking with the same mind, and it is music that connects us and makes this possible.
Music is much, much more for me, but I’m going to stop here. I hope people can get a small idea of what it means and what the experience is for me.
GQ (great question), @guihurts, and welcome to fluther!