I bet if there’s one thing that follows me for the rest of my life on this planet, it’s my online audio music subscription. I don’t know if I’m allowed to say it, I don’t know how “books” work, but I have a Spotify account.
I’ve got different playlists for different circumstances.
If I’m just chilling, I have a playlist for that. Mostly rock, but not “rip your face off” rock.
I have a totally different playlist for when I’m out ripping faces off.
I’m just kidding. I don’t do that anymore.
I used to have one playlist, and that was it. A lot of “rip your face off” type rock. I loved it, and still do on occasion, but that’s all I listened to. I called it my “Go to War” playlist. Stuff to get me mentally focused to go raid crack houses.
Now I have one for meditating. One for being creative, like now, writing. I’ve got a lot of playlists with different genres depending on what I’m involved in.
Music can definitely affect one’s mood. I noticed that when I listen to AC/DC, for instance, my speed almost automatically increases in whatever I’m driving by at least five miles per hour, and my MPG decreases just as rapidly for some reason.
I think music can both affect one’s spiritual mood and be an expression of one.
I’ve written some music on guitar. I used to write a lot of music. I decided to write music because I didn’t actually know how to play guitar at first. As if I do now.
I’d write music based on whatever I was feeling at the moment, which was usually some state of depression. That, and I started getting somewhat better at guitar as I practiced.
If anyone ever called me on any of the notes —
“Hey, man, what chord is that? Is that an actual chord? What is that you’re doing with your fingers?”
I figured I’d tell them it was artistic expression and accuse them of being an art-phobe. But then I realized it was a lot easier to stop giving a shit about what other people thought.
Sometimes Sue and I sit on the porch and play guitar at night. We’ve been doing that for years. I’ll play my “Larry version” of a song, and Sue will guess:
“Wait a minute, is that ZZ Top?”
I’m just impressed that I played it well enough for her to recognize it. Then I tell her,
“No, that’s what ZZ Top would sound like if they knew how to play guitar as well as I do.”
I forgot to say “only,” as in, “only knew how to play guitar as well as I do.”
Back when I was really struggling with Complex-PTS, tormented by it, I would sit and write songs. No words, just music.
I could think of no other way to express the pain in my spirit at the time, so it all came out in the music I wrote.
I let a friend who actually knew how to play guitar listen to a couple of the songs. I valued his opinion and told him I wanted an honest one.
He said,
“It’s really weird. That is some incredible music. It’s beautiful, but it makes me want to kill myself at the same time. It’s beautiful and depressing at the same time.”
That’s when I understood that the music I was generating was an actual expression of my own spirit that others could detect and be affected by.
I realized that I seemed to express myself through music almost easier than having actual conversations with others. I had no idea how to do something like have a conversation, but I did play guitar a lot.
That’s why I say all art takes courage. All art requires some degree of vulnerability.
And to me, great art — great music — requires a large degree of authentic vulnerability.
I studied one spiritual text that stated that God expresses Himself through sound, and that His “name” is actually a sound.
It exists within the realm of possibility, I suppose.
Anyway, that’s my two hundred words for the day.
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