That moment when you realize you’re waking up from a trip into music. Time has passed, but you’re uncertain how long you didn’t register anything else but the music. It’s like waking from a dream. It’s still there, lingering, but you’re no longer part of it. Reality kicks in. Flow. Or trance. Maybe mental intoxication. Being one with the composition. Embracing it, floating in it, catching the waves of the different layers, hopping from one instrument to another, going from melody to rhythm and back again. And then the slow release from the magic. When it turns into silence, or “just” music again.
It may sound poetic. And it may seem mystical. Sometimes it’s hard to explain to someone else what music can do on a very intimate personal level. How it can touch you, lift you up; it amazes you, caresses you. Like the warmth of the sun on the first hot day in spring, laying in the grass, eyes closed, the buzzing of insects, leaves rustling in the breeze that also moves your hair a little. Dozing off a little bit. Losing track of time. Until you have to get up and the spell is broken.
I remember one particular evening when I noticed the bassline. The TV was playing a concert. Could have been Rockpalast, could have been some Countdown special; that I don’t remember. But I lay comfortably on my bed. Nobody home and some serious 420 later (yes, we’re talking the Netherlands in the 90’s), I noticed the bassline. I was surfing it. I was riding it. I embraced the bassline, I became the bassline. Not moving at all, but in my head. Until the music stopped, lights out, eyes closed, sleep taking over.
Or that illegal houseparty in an abandoned warehouse. The opposite of bedded tranquility. Dancing on the continuous 4/4 rhythm until we all got into a trance. Total surrender to the everlasting mix of beats and bleeps, pushing us all forward. Hands in the air, feet moving, sweat on our bodies; we could go on for hours. The darkness, the flashing lights, the smoke, the atmosphere. In perfect flow. Until the last outro silenced and the cold lights signaled the end of the party. I remember us all feeling satisfied, tired but energized.
Standing in the crowd, as close to the stage as possible, singing along with a festival headliner. Maybe it’s raining, maybe it’s a hot summer night. Someone next to you, a complete stranger, looking at you with an intense smile and you both know you’re experiencing the same thing, you’re sharing a magical moment that doesn’t need any words other than those sung by hundreds or thousands of people. You know that at the end of the concert you’ll walk away and never see that person again and, yet, they’ve become part of your life, even if it was for that brief moment. And you’ll remember being lost in music for a moment.
However we experience music, in whatever genre, and wherever with whomever, the power of it can be profound. I can’t imagine a world without it.
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