Music 2 my Ears..

I was never a fan of rock music but there have been times when I realised its potential to rasies your energy levels and exert a strong influence on your state of mind. Right about now, I was feeling a bit down cast and philosophical and I had a sense of loss and my mind was wandering. I tried listening to songs by U2, but it’s not a rock band, atleast not a pure and complete rock band as The Edge's guitar and Bono's voice can be sweet and it does talk a lot about love, something that I do not want to remember at the present situation. I was listening to 'Hands that Built America', 'Miracle Drug' and 'Yahweh' by 'U2', and all of them had some real strong links with love and so I tried something different.

I tried 'Metallica' and believe me when I say it is working! It simply gave me new energy and brought back my wandering mind to the present and so here I am writing about the whole experience! The influence of music on our state of mind is amazing and it is said that Indian Classical Music can actually increase our appetite! So, the next time you go to a restaurant and you hear Ravishankar's sitar or a Carnatic raga, don't be amazed, but simply realise that it is a way to make you eat more! At the time of exams, it is a tradition of BITSians, and I think of all engineering students, to keep their studies for the night before the exams and it is then that we resort to a procedure called night out when we don't sleep at all and for most people in my hostel at BITS, rock music is what keeps them awake so that they can finish atleast half the portions for the exam! If we had chosen some classical or soft music, I am sure we would have fallen asleep in no time! Its midnight when I am writing this, yet I am not quite feeling sleepy as I am listening to heavy metal right now.

Soft music, especially Hindustani music can really calm your nerves and it can help you relax. There are those, who listen to music when they study (not to keep them awake!) to provide the right kind of atmosphere by listening to slow and soft songs to provide a sense of stability and a calming effect. But using ear phones or I-Pods when we study something new has not helped me, but playing it on a speaker has definitely had it's impact. Perhaps when we use the ear-phone, it directly enters our ears with very little intervening medium and this causes too much of a distraction but when we listen to it from a source from a small distance, the disturbance might be reduced, allowing us to focus on something else like studies or writing. Even religion has it's own strong links with music and most of our prayers and epics are written in verses with a definite fixed tune and meter and when we chant our prayers, it is some sort of music. Bhajans,
keertans and most compositions in carnatic and some in hindustani music are actually prayers and songs about god and his glory. Christianity has choirs in its churches at prayer times and Lord Ayyappa is put to sleep using a composition in his praise.

Remember how your mother put you to sleep when sleep seemed far away to you? She sang a lullaby, which by magic it seem, make your eyelids heavy and slip into the comfort of sleep without even knowing about it. Isn't it strange how some random arrangement of sound can affect the way you feel and affect your mood? That is the power of music and those who can sing, have my immense respect, as I believe that music is a god given gift, and musicians, according to me are truly messengers of god.