A Moment of Music

A Moment of Music
Hot Springs, AR

This is my favorite photo from my Intro to Photography class (although it was the lowest grade I received). There's just something about the musician so wrapped up in his music that he doesn't have a care in the world. Although his face is wrinkled with age and his clothes are slightly disheveled he doesn't have a care in the world because of his music. As Victor Hugo states, "Music expresses that which cannot be put into words, and that which cannot remain silent." There's something about music that we each identify with. We have personal likes and dislikes, and there is music to suit just about every mood a person can encounter. Music can turn your day around. If you listen to something happy and cheerful you can't help but get caught up in the emotion. Or you can listen to something deep and pensive to suite a contemplative mood. As a trumpet player, my favorite thing to play is old hymns. I love to sit in the empty sanctuary at my church, play through some old hymns, and let the music reverberate around me. I can pour my thoughts and my feelings into my music and, as Hugo says so well, express something that I could never put into words. I also love to listen to movie soundtracks while I work or write because of the deep emotion expressed in them. It is so easy to lose oneself in music, to become so wrapped up in the moment that we lose all track of our problems and trials and just cease to be for a moment. Music is my refuge. I can espcape there when my life is being tossed about. Music will always be there, on a computer, on the radio, in the birds singing, playing along in the jukebox in my mind. Music will stand the test of time. Just as the ancient peoples have music, the people of the future will as well...though the style will probably be pretty different from what we know today. Music simply is, was, and will always be...