Music is my family business. My father is a world renowned guitarist, my grandmother was a music teacher, my mother is a poet, and my uncle is a music professor. Music has been a part of my life from the moment I was born, and some of my father’s music is the soundtrack for my childhood memories.
I was a kid who grew up in a musical household and this experience definitely set me on the path toward what I do now. But the thing that makes my musical upbringing so unique is how I came to understand what music actually IS. Not only is it something to DO, PLAY, PRACTICE, SHARE, but it is also something that can be experienced in places and ways that are not necessarily considered “musical”.
The world around us is made of music.
The world around us is built upon elements of music that are undeniable and easy to find, if you just know where to look. Once I started to live my life in a way that reflects my own innate musical being, I found that I was more in tune with myself and the world around me, and I began to attract more people and situations that were in harmony with what I wanted for my life.
From the moment our heart starts beating, to our last breath, we are here to express our divine uniqueness and share it with others.
Within this construct you will find the Musical Elements of Life: Rhythm, Melody, Harmony, and Silence.
Here is a very brief overview what exactly these musical elements are, and how they fit into the construct of your life.
Rhythm
From the moment our hearts start beating we are sending sound vibration into the world.
The beat continues for our entire lives. Imagine droplets hitting the surface of the water. Each beat of our heart is a droplet, producing invisible ripples that intersect with the heartbeats of those around us. It’s faint, but it’s there. This is important because it means that you are constantly emiting vibes into the world based on how you feel. And those vibes have the ability to attract or repel other energies around you.
Notice how your pulse quickens and becomes irregular when you feel angry or worried. Like-energies attract each other. The more you put out angry or worried vibes, the more you will attract things that make you angry or worried. Physics. We can actually learn to regulate our heartbeats, which then puts us in a neutral space where we no longer give off negative vibes. Instead, we are both radiating and attracting positivity, and the cycle continues…
Melody
Our purpose in this world is to express our uniqueness out into the Universe.
When we are born, we begin down a life path that is unlike any other. The journey will take twists and turns and dips and dives, and often end up in places we least expect. Melody is the song of the journey of our lives. In life as well as in music, the destination is not important, it’s about the song itself. And it is our unique songs that we contribute to the world.
I express my own uniqueness through creating music and being a mother but others do it through cooking, writing, dancing, painting, consulting, designing, building, organizing, etc. If your “thing” is cooking, you do not have to be a professional chef to have a profound impact on the people who are nourished by your food. The important thing is recognizing and honoring your unique path, and actually DOING the things that your impulses are urging you to do.
When you do this you are adding your own melody to an inherently musical Universe, and the Symphony becomes ever more beautiful because you are in it.
Harmony
Harmony is a concept we use to describe the quality of our relationships.
When we are in harmony with others we feel safe enough to express our authentic selves in their company. The vibes that we are each emitting are in harmony with each other.
But if you are stressed and overworked, thinking about the work report that’s due in an hour, you’re likely to give off a vibration that is quicker, and possibly a little irregular. Your heartbeat is also likely to increase in dynamics, meaning that it becomes a little louder. When your son walks in to ask you to play soccer with him, he is walking into a room dominated by quick, stress-filled vibrations. This energy will be dissonant from (not in harmony with) his own vibes. He’ll feel it and think to himself, “maybe I should wait until mom is done before I ask her this question…” Because he can sense, in some way, that you will not be receptive to him right now.
To consciously tune into the people around us we are allowing ourselves into a space where we can be in harmony with other people’s energies.
Silence
Silence is the breath before the song. It is the space between the notes, a conscious listening. Silence is a resting place along the path of our lives.
All creativity comes from a space of silence. In order to hear your own life’s music you have to first stop, become aware, and listen to whats happening around you.
This is an increasingly loud and distracting world. It is very hard to find time or space to allow silence into our heads. We also have “monkey minds” that bounce from one idea to another, to another, all day long.
We have to intentionally create space in our lives and in our minds in order to access the parts of ourselves that are inherently creative. Become aware of the creative impulses in your body and then you can harness them. Everyday we must find ourselves in silence in order to be most fully human.
The elements
From the moment our heart starts beating (RHYTHM), to our last breath (SILENCE), we are here to express our divine uniqueness (MELODY) and share it with others (HARMONY).
Sound vibration was here before all of us. It shaped us out of pure potentiality. Music is ordered sound. And when we understand that at our cores we are all musical, vibrational beings, we are more likely to live lives that are full of inspiration, positivity, and creative power. And we can pass this wisdom to the next generation.