Music.

Like many, I’ve had — and continue to have — a wonderful relationship with music throughout my life.

And perhaps my experience and perspective towards music is a little different to someone who might write an honorific piece such as this.

To begin, I am not at all musically gifted or inclined.

I’ve fantasized about masterfully playing a musical instrument more times than I can count — though the fact that I couldn’t even play the recorder in primary school makes this even more laughable.

I think that the fact I have so many fond musical memories through various stages of my life is important to note, especially so as I do not have many moments through my upbringing that I can recall with any clarity in general.

There are so many songs that transport me right back to where I was at the time of having been affected by them in some way.

My earliest memories are of the theme songs to the cartoons and anime I watched — Voltes V, Dragon Ball, Saint Seiya, Transformers, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to name a few.

Then there is the music that my parents listened to and would leave their mark on me in their own way — Hong Kong pop artists such as Jacky Cheung and Aaron Kwok, The Beetles, Carol King, The Bee Gees, and Michael Jackson.

In my high school and adolescent years, it was a variety of mainstream pop music, west coast rap, heavy metal, and Japanese, Mando, and Canto-pop — a wide and eclectic mix that very much paints a picture of the confusing and exploratory nature of those years.

No matter which era of my life, music has coloured my experience and perspective in some way — even as I reminisce whilst writing this piece, it is incredible the way all of these songs viscerally surge through my body, sending ripples of emotion that I could never begin to describe.

Now, almost four decades in, I feel I have found a good sampling of sounds that speak directly to me and give me some form of nourishment. Akin to identifying my favourite foods, the playlists and musicians I reach for on a daily basis provide the sustenance necessary to move through my day-to-day.

Lately, I have been fascinated at how music could influence my daily life in such a profound way, so I started to think about why this could be.

I like to listen to music when I exercise. Depending on the day, I find that I ‘crave’ — similar to the way I’d often crave certain foods or cuisines — a particular type or genre of music as I workout.

It was as if music would almost help to determine my mood at the time of listening.

For instance, when I’m feeling a little steam-from-the-nostrils-ish, I listen to Slipknot, Limp Bizkit, or Rage Against the Machine.

When I need a bit of an extra push on the final leg of a ten kilometre run, I put on something with hopeful and uplifting vibes.

But being the curious soul that I am, I continued to explore my relationship with music.

I came to realise that it wasn’t so much that music defines my mood. Rather, it illuminates and identifies it — I found that music is like a sonar for how I am feeling.

The way I recognised this is quite simple.

I find it interesting that I listen to a lot of music, yet pay little attention to the lyrics whether I understand the language or not.

I came to realise this when my wife kept telling me I was always getting song lyrics wrong.

I also learned to ‘sing’ many songs that are in languages I don’t even speak or understand.

So it was the ‘sound’ of the music that moved me in some way, that made me pay enough attention to think that I might ‘like’ a song or composition.

And I have a playlist full of such songs which I listen to on shuffle each time I go for a run. I noticed that I would sometimes skip a long series of my randomised playlist, not knowing which song I was actually looking for, but when the start of a song felt right, it would be what I listened to.

Songs I feel, like all artistic expressions, all carry with them a theme, feeling, emotion, sentiment, vibe, mood, etc.

They convey a message.

Music, like words, are a form of communication.

It is a language.

So I began to listen as such.

I feel like listening to a particular musical mood on one day, and a completely different genre on another. When I meditate on this, I realised that it matches how I feel at the time.

Am I feeling melancholic? Giddy? Energetic? Angry? Rebellious? Lonely? Confused? Sentimental? Joyful? Peaceful? Destructive? Frustrated?

And it isn’t necessarily just ‘music’ — in the three-to-four minute instrumental, vocal composition sense.

For me, it is more broadly about the sonic sensory experience.

That is, listening.

I cannot say whether I have a greater sensitivity when it comes to the sense of hearing than what is considered ‘normal.’

Though I do feel it to be sensitive.

I would say that it is my preferred medium of interacting with the world, as it seems to reveal to me greater depths of information than any other sense — whether that is sight, taste, touch, or smell.

For example, in a conversation, I glean much more from someone’s tone than the actual words that they speak.

I understand so much more about myself and my emotional state through music and sound.

For me, they bring a level of tangibility to my inner world that I feel to be more effective than any words or images ever could.

And although I do not have the technical skills required to express myself through this medium, I find it incredibly comforting that so many are able to capture some small portion of what it is that I am feeling.

It helps me feel that I am a little less alone in this human experience, that many others share in some way what I feel or have felt before.

Until next time, peace.