Vibration

This week I decided to re-live some of my teenage angst and attend a rock concert. The lights were stabbingly beautiful and left me dazed. The room was filled with young kids, dressed in black tee shirts smeared with the band's name and tour dates. Everyone seemed indifferent enough to the opening bands and each other for that matter; minding their business like they were fellow passengers on a bus. However, once the band entered under flayed red lights, fan voices escalated and the room literally shook. The large room moved with the band, oscillating with the thickening beat.

After going to an event like this, my mind always turns to the wonders of vibration. No matter how many times I attend a basketball game, football game, or listen to a band perform with a sound system reaching its peak and vibrating in my chest, I always lose myself in it. When it comes down to the basic chemistry of the body, we ARE vibrations. We are made up of one specific vibration, resonating along out wrists, the hollow of our neck, center of the chest, and along our legs. Our bodies move in musical time.



For any musicians out there, I have heard songs in 3/4 time or waltz time appeal most to people because this is the closest rhythm to our heart beat. I can't speak for everyone, but I do believe I am attracted to songs in 3/4 time more often than any other time signature. But regardless, take a moment and think of what we relish in as human beings....

voices, music, communication, warnings, words, and the simple rhythm of the body.

all of these exist as nothing more than simple vibrations. Yet, they mean everything to our minds. Vibrations can carry heartbreak, joy, fear and even love in the quick pulses. I have been comforted, pained and enlightened by vibrations. The simple science of it is reduced to vibrations moving in out ears, clashing with the beat of our hearts and shaking our whole physical bodies. We are creatures of vibration.



If you ever want to understand a perfect illustration of this, read the book "Sirens of Titan" by Kurt Vonnegut. In the book, two main characters come across an alien creature with thin, diamond shaped bodies. They are called harmoniums and they live for vibrations. At one point, one of the main characters lets them crawl all over him and of course they huddle along his wrists, chest, neck and the inside of his thigh, feeding off of his vibration. What a wondeful image. Creatures living for our own music. We are walking music.

I love going to concerts and being with large groups of fueled people who illustrate sound in its most primary form. To me, my most valued sense is hearing. I would be utterly lost without it. To hear someone's voice, is to feel them with me again and I am grateful I grasp moments to join others in large groups, drowning in vibrations.

A little something about me... when I have a hard time sleeping at night, I roll on my stomach and wrap my arm around my neck with my fingers on the side of my throat. I fall asleep listening to my pulse. It is after all, the only music I carry with me always.