Now this is what I call music (I)

My Canon in D (I am aware this is a terrible drawing done in less than 3 minutes, but I tried to leave my hand freely off my mind as bizarrely and fantastically as I remember it)

Music plays such a huge role in our lives. It has the power to stir and shake our emotions, inspire or simply entertain us. It is one of my favourite things on earth.

Now I'm really concentrating in, perhaps, what I am most passionate about, I'm so blinded by my love for music I'm not even sure if I can be objective here, but here it is.

Overall, I really love art. I think it is the most beautiful way of expressing oneself, and it can be brilliant and overwhelming, especially if it comes from the depths of your soul, and this is not easy: you have to dismantle every layer inside covering your true self and, in order to do that, you need to face memories, thoughts and feelings that the majority prefer to ignore. Perhaps they think it is for their own good, or maybe they just don't realize that these feelings exist, maybe they simply do not care. And they may be right, who knows, there's never an universal opinion.

Basically, the form of art that speaks to me the most is music: I've gotten quite familiar with it now, but I remember when I got into it at the beginning: I started to think, to brood, to ponder about it, every verse, every instrument, every change in the voice of the vocalist (or not), every sound... Honestly, it's been the most exciting and thrilling trip I've ever been on. I've learned and I'm still learning to contemplate music, and that's something I feel blessed about, because it's a skill among maaaany others that not everyone has.

Who hasn't spent hours dancing and performing in their rooms as a teen with their favourite songs playing? It was a great way to get away from it all and it made you feel good! The songs that played were those kind of songs that made you feel like you could take over the world, or simply beautiful songs that you performed while you thought you were all alone, pretending to be in front of thousands of people. Or also those hours you spent just lying on your bed or on the floor simply listening to music; nothing else mattered then. Personally, that's one of my favourite hobbies, to concentrate on the music, and sometimes also thinking while it is playing, imagining. You can get such an indescribably liberating feeling while doing either of those things... Some music makes you feel like you can reach for the sky, and that's priceless.

Oh my, I think it's such a magnificent form of art: the rhythm, the harmonies... (I just see them as I'm writing this!) those things perfectly combined are what make great songs, and great songs can get you through life, through happy or rough times. Music can bring you up when you're down and that's such an important function (that not eeeeverybody is concerned about); so few things have the capacity to impact you as music does.

It can affect the way you dress, the way you behave, the way you think and the way you feel.

Music, particularly has changed the way I see things; it has made me who I am today, and it inspires me in my everyday life.

Almost nothing makes me happier than discovering new great bands or songs; it's something that makes my mind truly blissful and relaxed.

Finding out about a new sound and a new beat that I hadn't identified in a song before is still one of my biggest joys. 

And they say that you must find what makes you happy in life and stick with it.

And with this rather long introduction I introduce a section where I'll talk (write OK) about my favourite songs. I know right!? Such hard decisions!!!! But that's why it is going to be a section and not just a post. It simply wouldn't be possible.

Now this is what I call music (I)

To begin with, I've got a clear idea of which songs are actually the most important in me. That doesn't mean I listen to them all day every day, it just means that when I randomly happen to hear or listen to them they stir EVERY of my inner strings (yes, I'm a violin inside, of course).

When you have attached memories to something it often acquires a special dimension, it's like, it becomes tridimensional or something and then your melancholy may make those past things appear, more, like, unique. This may be what happens to me with these couple of songs.

I'll stop your suffering and mention them before I write about them so that if you wish you can listen to them while reading or something, as you wish. 

1. Canon in D - Johann Pachelbel

A very old sounding version

A more well-known version 

Gosh I love this damn piece! I think it's top (woh!). No but really, it is the song that when I listen to it I see my life flowing in front of my eyes. It's like a fresh breeze that brings a nice floral fragrance while you're sitting on a green open field or meadow or garden, you choose, in Italy, for example. It is warm and there are citrus and apple trees around you. You are watching what comes a tiny beat earlier than the sunset and the shadows create beautiful shapes. You can see the dance of the leaves just by looking at the shadow. You just feel content and admire the magnificent show before you. 

And nothing else is needed.

This song brings back such precious memories of when I was younger. I'll tell you the story of this song in my world:

I was a classical music freak. Especially between the awkward age of 12 and 16 so I thought I had to keep it to myself if I didn't want to be judged (one day at high-school a friend asked me what I was listening to and took my headphone: she pushed it away when she realized what it was, for your information, Vivaldi's four seasons were on at that moment) I would walk down the street with orchestras of violins playing through my ears, it was great. I loved it. And I loved this song a lot too back then.

Going even further backwards we can find my first contact with classical music: as a little child my father would wake up in the morning, go to the living room with his huge CD player, put a classical record on and press play. Shortly after he would come to where I was sleeping to wake me up in an energy and a sweetness that I've never felt again. 

I would excitedly wake up, run to the living room, and ask which song was playing. Some time after I would do the same but instead I'd try to guess the song. Wether I had failed or had succeeded at guessing it, at the end I would sing along with the violins and dance in front of the sofa. And then I would keep humming it while having breakfast.

Fasting forward again to my teens (13-years-old), something very special happened related with this piece.

Now, I have to say I didn't live with my father so we saw each other on the weekends or every 14 days or so. So, one Sunday evening he randomly called me and told me: "Hey Berta, come down in X minutes, we are going somewhere special, you'll see". I was rather confused but he sounded so excited that I also felt so. We took a train, I don't remember anything else of the little trip, I just know we were late for something. Once we arrived to Barcelona all I remember is darkness (it was winter and it was night already) and blurry lampposts light. We run through the streets, I didn't even know where I was, I was just concentrating on following him and not get lost, and then...

We arrived, I couldn't even see the building well then but it was el Palau de la Música de Barcelona (roughly translated as the Palace of Music, I guess). We were in such a hurry I didn't have time to stop and appreciate the interior of the building, nobody was in the hall, and the next I remember is  rushing up some massive central stairs to some upper floor and opening a door to the seatings of the first floor, facing the stage. Then I realized, we were in a classical music concert. He "phewed" at seeing that it didn't start yet, and just as we sat down, the show began. I was still quite out of place but then it started playing: the Canon in D. 

The rest is history.

It was so wonderful and I was so enchanted I couldn't believe it was happening. I cried, during the whole song. It was so beautiful, I just can't even make it justice, I felt like I was floating and all my dreams around me materialized and slowly flew surrounding me like an aura-tornado thing. My imagination just went wild. I was amidst a storm of conflicted feelings and I just, couldn't, hold, myself.

You know, the place was also perfect, just google Palau de la Música and you'll see what a marvelous addition it is to the whole experience (I like it so much I'll write an entry on it so you get to know it).

This easily is my most blissful memory so far.

I just can try and recreate the aura of the time with these words while I completely open my heart here. 

Running under a splendid moon half lost through dark alleys with fairy lights and blurred silhouettes I completely forgot about my worries and about everything at all, I was free and it was magic.

After that, when I got home very late at night I confirmed my decision of starting to play the violin. Can you imagine what a weird feeling I got going to school the next day after that? It was kind of a let-down, I guess, but it also inspired me so much I quietly smiled to myself the whole day, it was like I was inside a bubble among my classmates. 

These days, when I hear or listen to the Canon in D I can still float around. Next and last time I heard it live was in a tiny chamber concert in my trip to Prague 2 years ago in summer. When it played I, unexpectedly, saw myself melting into tears again, and my father said without having an idea of what was going on inside me: "You cry so easily...".

To finish with, I'll confess I was planning to write about my two (yes) favourite songs when I opened this entry, but it has gotten so long that it wouldn't be fair for those of you reading this. So I'll keep it for next entries.

Let me tell you, if you have gotten down here, I salute you, and give you my most sincere thanks for reading one of my most precious memories.

I really hope you have enjoyed.

And I really hope you can enjoy this song as well.

See you soon,

B.

Disclaimer: as this happened many years ago I am conscious my mind might have idealized some bits, but this is how it remains in my mind.

***As I was writing this I was listening to, obviously, Canon in D***