Besides that quality, you know what's great about music? You know what I really love?
That thing when the melody starts off really quiet and gets steadily louder.
That thing when your foot starts tapping of its own accord.
That thing when the harmony comes in.
That thing when the beat slows to half-time.
That thing when the beat quickens to double-time.
That thing when the beat is so steady and persistent that Pandora calls it “headnodic.”
That thing when the key changes and you really feel it, man.
That thing when the singer shouts the chorus and everyone shouts along.
That thing when the singer gets all breathy because the pathos is just too overwhelming.
That thing when the chord progression is just a bit unexpected and yet completely perfect.
That thing when the notes are picked and plucked with such speed and precision that you despair of your own dexterity.
That thing when the sound trails off in a fuzz of distortion.
That thing when the lyrics seem to have been taken from your most intimate thoughts and fed back to you through another person's filter.
I'm not alone in feeling about music the way some people feel about church. It alternately intensifies, calms, and catalyzes emotions. It offers a common language. It makes me want to convert my friends. It keeps me sane, or at least somewhat sane. Sane-ish? Anyway, let's just say if I didn't have music, I would need a heap of therapy. Think on that, insurance companies. Time to reimburse for records and concerts as preventive medicine?
You know Bob Marley once said, “One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.”
But music isn't just a good time, or an envy-inducing display of talent, or a replacement pharmaceutical. Music provides the experience of transcendence, the elusive sense of melding into something bigger. And maybe that's the best thing.