What does music mean to you?

Livia Rose
Jan 22, 2020
4 min read

" ‘What does music mean to you?’ That was the question presented to me when I was told I would be giving this speech tonight. Such a simple question! And yet all the time in the world was never going to be enough for me to prepare an assortment of words to present to you. All the time spent sifting through thesauruses for more powerful words and pondering the true meaning of this question, was never going to be enough to find the words to express to you what it is in my heart that I feel every day of my life making the music that has led me right up to this moment. The words for what I feel just simply don’t exist. The most poetic and detailed speech would still prove futile. I think that is what makes music unique.

Every note, every pitch,.. every tone, timbre, texture,.. every colour, speaks to every single one of us differently. Every silence, before, during, amongst and after, just as powerful as the music itself. It is within these silences that we draw out and pause, even if only just for a brief moment, and allows us to just feel. One single chord that strikes excitement for one person, may be another person’s grief, and only a single moment later, the tables could just as easily turn… that is the power of music… It has this magical ability to draw out those emotions within us that words cannot even begin to understand. Happiness: The word that condenses the feeling of warmth that spreads throughout your body from an unknown point and pinches your cheeks into a smile, even if it may just be on the inside. Comfort: The feeling of being safe and protected in a world where we are just one speck on a planet brimming with specks that make up the seas on continent land. Love: The feeling of your heart connecting to the people around you; Love for your mother… Love for your father. Love for your sister or brother. Through blood or through soul, love for your partner, your friends, your neighbours,.. love for your country, love for your pets and for your teachers and for your heroes,…… People you know and people you don’t… Pain: the feeling you may get when you fall off your bike, or the way it feels when your body and soul split and shatter into heavy pieces, leaving you exhausted and torn… Music has a way of expressing, potentially hundreds of different emotions at once and multiple emotions in one song, relying solely upon the ears of the person upon which the music falls.

I believe this is why music speaks louder and clearer than words. Music is exactly what we ourselves make it, and I think that is a special and priceless phenomenon that is often overlooked. The music we listen to constantly gives us a chance to pause, focus inward, and find ourselves intertwining within every melody, every chord, every harmony… Whether words accompany sound, what the lyrics are, don’t even marginally compare with the price of what they say. Not what the words mean when strung together in verse, but what we feel, when the voice washes over us and what emotions it draws from our hearts.

And that is why, all the time planning, all the translations and language lessons, all the research and all the re-written speeches would never have been able to express to you, tonight, this warmth and love that fills my heart and spills over my entire body when I think about the people that have found meaning in our music, and made it their own. Words just simply don’t carry the weight that music does. They are two different languages entirely, both relying upon sound and silence, but with the difference laying within where these sounds connect: One connecting with the mind, and with logic… The other, connecting with the heart.

So while this speech tonight may be somewhat structured and logical, speaking to your mind and letting you hear what I wish to express, albeit just scratching the surface, the real speech, is woven into the music we make. It is my sincerest hope that our music reaches out and opens a window, shedding light and showing to the world what my heart and soul feels when making the music that reaches you.

Because that is what music is best at.

My passion for music is what has driven me to create the ultimate medium to let us feel. To let us understand more about ourselves, and to find a piece of our soul, woven within the sound or silence of a piece of music that your make your own. To reach out and provide a canvas for you to paint however you wish. For you to make it, what you will.