Have you ever noticed what a profound change music can make on a person? It can change their mood in just a few notes, or it can make a person truly introspective within a chord.
It can be a song like Bart Crow's "Give me back my ring" that instantly brings a smile to a person's face and makes them start dancing with that first guitar riff. It could be the most true words of, "I'm not as good as I advertise, then again who really is," as you hear Wade Bowen singing his "Walking along the fence line." Then there's the oddly calming effect "Piano man" will forever have on me. Each individual song brings a completely different emotion.
We all have those songs that we are completely insulted if people talk over, and we all have those songs that we belt out like American Idols while driving in traffic. Some of us have wedding songs and lullabies for our children; a song to match every mood and occasion.
How do we break that down even further though? Look past the show and go of the "rock-star" life and the fun and emotion these songs bring us and really look into how those songs came to be. Many of those songs started with just one guitar...
One Guitar, or is it? More like a six-string life changing, soul-searching piece of equipment each with a different tone and meaning.
E is for experience and what a wild experience that guitar can bring you. It can bring you to love, it can bring you pain. You can experience sheer joy and extreme frustration. Any way you look at the experience your life has now been forever changed just by strumming that first string.
A is for Achievement, and the feelings those individual small achievements have brought you. You are now playing, composing and loving the music that is coming out of that piece of equipment.
D is for determination. Determination to improve, determination to excel, and determination to succeed. Something you thought you lost long ago, the ability to feel good about yourself through hard work and determination.
G is for gratitude, for life, for love and most importantly for the music you make.
B is for becoming who you really are. After years of not knowing what exactly you were meant to do on this earth, you pick up a guitar and all of the sudden like a ray from god himself; you are learning and becoming who you are supposed to be.
This brings us back to E for experience. When you really look at a guitar is it just wood and strings? No way. That one guitar will change your life with every pick, with every chord and with every tune. The confidence, the pride the blood sweat and tears you pour into something that is YOUR creation. That's not what I would call "one guitar".
I do understand not everyone holds music to such a high regard as I do. That comes down to the simple fact that not everyone enjoys the same things. Some people have walked through their entire life just hearing a "catchy tune" and humming it throughout the day not really understanding everything including the raw emotion it takes to bring that song to the public.
Clearly, the steps vary from artist to artist and not all genres are the same either. However, someone had to come up with the actual sound of the song and then figure out how to make the sound in their head a reality on a piece of musical equipment, I have watched musicians play around with a progression of notes for months before they can actually get out the sound in their head.
Someone had to feel the lyrics, find the words to describe the feeling, and then find a way to get them out of their brain and into pen to paper format. Someone else had to believe in those words and the music enough to not worry about the possible negative comments and have enough faith in themselves to just let it out at the same time having enough guts to share it with the world.
The next time you are humming along with your favorite song or jamming out in your car as you turn yourself into the next American Idol, take a second to think about the impact music really can have on you as well as how much really goes into that song coming through your speakers. Appreciate the heart and soul that is in each song. Appreciate that it only takes hearing a song to change your mood or your entire day.
I am blessed to have many musicians in my life; songwriters, players, managers, crew and staff. I truly appreciate all of you and all you do. Without music, I don't know what I would do.