music

Today was a little better. There are no circumstantial reasons for that, but I didn't have as many panic attacks or suicide ideation.

I am playing Kreisler's Preludium and Allegro on violin right now. I played it for Erin this morning for advice (she played it last year). I played it technically very well, but in my effort to achieve the illusive perfect intonation, I didn't put any of my heart into it.

Tonight I didn't do any homework. I practice violin for three hours, cello for an hour, and went to a concert with my dad that I was supposed to play in but backed out of. While practicing my lovely Boccherini cello concerto I had to pay more attention to notes and stuff (as I'm just learning it), but I decided to play the Kreisler with no inhibitions, just put my heart into it completely (don't worry this is going somewhere).

Somewhere in the middle all of the tension inside of me melted away. I wasn't in the livingroom anymore. I was in the Kreisler. The notes were a universe; the cadences became my emotions. Every bit of me was concentrated into a few pages of music.

I'm not sure how to explain this unless you've had an experience like it. It's kind of like a runner's high, except a musician's high. Your body gets pumped full of these cool endorphins, and it feels like you're no longer an individual, you are a strand in a web. Any self-centered worries just kind of fade in the face of something more important. All of your energy gets poured into making that music into something that could warp the world.

Music is kind of like consciousness. All of our scientific research of neurons can't explain the consciousness a collection of them creates. All of our scientific research of sound waves can't explain all of the emotions, tied to consciousness, they carry.

Sometimes you have to be strong enough to play music. Sometimes it takes a kind of integrity, a presence of mind, a willingness to be vulnerable. It takes confidence, or it takes humility, or it takes nostalgia. And if you don't have what you need and you try to play it, it just sounds so hollow.

I finished playing my Kreisler today and it really did feel like a runner's high. Everything in me was singing. I felt so much better than before I played it. All of my fear and paranoia had somehow floated away with the complicated passages. I felt almost whole again, because I have felt very fragmented for the past few months. It was a glue that pulled me back together for one more moment, giving me strength for one more day.

If I had nothing else to live for (or if I operated under the illusion that I didn't), I could almost live just for music, just for that moment when I let go and my bow is flying across the strings or my hands are touching the keys.

Play a musical instrument. No matter how old you are. It is the very best therapy (along with hugs and kisses).