Heartstrings

Do you ever find yourself on the cusp of a feeling and you try to use music to intensify that feeling?

Maybe it’s somewhat silly to even post because people use music to evoke feeling all the time.  For weddings, you’ll find love songs and joyful tunes.  If you’re angry and want to rage against the machine you can, well, listen to Rage Against the Machine.  Of course there is the ever-popular post breakup wallow.

But I’m not really talking about those sorts of things.  I’m talking about finding a feeling.  You feel something welling up in you, but you aren’t certain what it is.  Is it that you’re about to be sad?  Or maybe you’re just feeling particularly loving?

I have restless music days.  Days where I change the channel on Spotify or switch to Songza or Pandora, searching.  What melody, what lyrics, what genre is going to vibrate the correct heartstrings?  It’s like having one of those itches that you scratch, but it moves.  You keep chasing it, but you still have the sensation of the itch, just beneath your skin.

When I find the right music the restlessness settles.  My soul tunes in and I tend to get stuck on it for days.  Looping a limited playlist or even listening to the same song several times in one day.  Sometimes in a row.  The itch is scratched and I use the feelings to make something.