Thank you for the music

For me life is incomplete unimaginable without music.

Before you start thinking that I am a music connoisseur, let me clarify in a hurry that I am not. I just enjoy music, any kind, depending on my mood. 

Talk about the technical aspects of music and you have lost me already, unless you can make it interesting enough for me to understand. I tried my hand at learning Carnatic music (one form of Indian classical) on a stringed instrument, but that exercise was a bit short-lived. The structure and complexity of Carnatic classical music needs a good teacher, along with plenty of practice and dedication from the student. Though I had good teachers, I was lacking in the practice and dedication part.

I also sing. Or at aleast try to. Not sure if the people who listen will call it singing, though.

Source: Google Images

M S Subbulakshmi
(Source : Google Images)

Bombarded with Growing up with music all around me, has instilled in me, a sense of rhythm and an appreciation for music. It has also kind of honed my senses a bit to detect an off-key tune (so beware!).

Initially there were the usual suspects - lullabies, little classical devotional compositions sung by parents and relatives to quiten a noisy or sleepy child or to make the agitated child calm down.

Then came the songs pertaining to light music and folk music. After them classical compositions and film songs of multiple languages streamed in. Then came the "English" music through the tapes of radio recordings from outside India, as well as one 30 mins program on the radio every Sunday afternoon. That opened up another world for me. I slowly moved from pop to soft rock to jazz (a teeny weeny bit) to country (a teeny weeny bit) and then to western classical (slightly more than teeny weeny), all the time never letting go of Indian music in all its variations.

And now, I move between all these genres quite frequently. There are no favourites or rather I have different favourites at different points in time. 

The-One-who-needs-no-introduction
(Source : Google Images)

There is not one single day when I don't hum or sing or listen to some music or pester people who can sing to sing or pester those who play instruments to play them. It has become an integral part of everyday activity. Performing household chores or cooking or jogging or just about anything or to dance with kids or meditating or even just plain relaxation, has to have some suitable musical accompaniment to it, often times with me singing along. Music lifts my spirits and gives me great joy.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
(Google Images)

Of course, those sad weepy songs do make one contemplate suicide in a tearing hurry.

Even now, at home during festivals, the ladies of the family (along with some men of the family) sing devotional songs together. That is something I really enjoy and cherish.

I have great admiration and appreciation for the ones who compose music, play instruments, write songs, sing, experiment with various notes, pitches & tones and finally come up with something so very good that people want to sing it, play it, dance to it, listen to it, not once or twice but for years and in the case of classical music, for centuries. 

Innumerable works have withstood the tests of time, experimentation, cultures, wars, battles, fires, floods, earthquakes, migration and languages.

So, to all these people whose musical works has made life more colourful, I have to say this. 

Thank you for the music.

* Lyrics are here

For A-Z Challenge 2014