FinishMySong Blog

I'm often asked why it is that I consider music so important that I choose to make my living from being involved with it, teaching and playing piano on a freelance basis rather than doing something more 'practical' such as office work. My answer comes in the form of another question : why is that we think of music as a purely superficial form of entertainment and yet pretty much every significant event of our lives is marked with the presence of music in some form or other? Indeed, the performance and reception of music is a massively important part of our society and it's power to evoke the strongest of emotions is crystal clear when you consider the way it helps to carry messages from the patriotism of a national anthem, religious faith of hymns to the narrative of a script in movies and television programmes. Music is everywhere and that in itself makes the study and participation of musical activities crucial.

Another interesting facet of music, I believe, is its capacity to remain in the memory as a direct reference or prompt to our feelings both past and present. Hearing a given piece can have the effect of evoking an emotional response that is equivalent to actually experiencing the event(s) that it is associated with.

My personal experience of this is demonstrated every time I happen to switch on the television during the title sequence of Star Trek Voyager - just hearing the main melody of this programme's theme tune takes me right back to a very specific time in my life in late 1998 / early 1999. Not only am I reminded of this period of my life but I internally EXPERIENCE the same feelings that I had at that time. You see, I used to walk home from college to my bedsit in the South Bay area of Scarborough and would often drop in at the cottage where two of my uni friends lived at the time. After a heavy day's study and a calming walk down that long, straight road in the cold, foggy darkness I'd step into the bustling, friendly atmosphere of Rich & Chris' pad just around teatime when their cooking of dinner and endless, amusing chats would be accompanied by the sound of a small telly, hanging from the wall on a metal rack, blasting out the sounds of Captain Janeway and her crew journeying their way across the Delta quadrant! I suppose at the time I found their abode very comforting and this feeling of warmth is poured right through me even now when I hear that string and brass melody that opens Voyager. Of course, it also reminds me of just how much I now miss those days at uni!