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POLYPHONY OF EMOTION
John .T Crestwell, Jr.

What is it about music that moves our soul?  What is it about a “C” chord or other musical sounds that blend so perfectly and seem so balanced and harmonious?  What is it about music that moves us, emotionally, in so many ways?

Remember when you broke up with your first girlfriend or boyfriend?  You were sad or perhaps angry or perhaps you had vengeance in your heart?  You’d go home and play all of the records that would make you even sadder, angrier, and more vengeful.  Why do we do that?    

How about when you’re driving and a song comes on the radio you know very well, and immediately you know when and where you first heard it and the occasion, which brings a warm-fuzzy feeling, or other emotions…

How about when you’re traveling and you play that favorite CD and you sing the entire three hours as if you are on Broadway. 

In the Crestwell family we end up listening to the Sesame Street sing along.  It brings out many emotions indeed…  But after three hours of singing kid songs, I cannot say all my emotions are “warm & fuzzy!” (hello).

What about when you’re in church and you hear a moving interlude or classical piece or hymn and you are immediately taken to another place—another plain of spirituality and it is a good place, a blissful place, and at that moment you feel one with your God, or one with life, one with the Universe—one with all things…

I don’t know what makes music so powerful, why certain sounds and songs move my/our  emotions so deeply.  I don’t know why some songs make you smile, some make you laugh, some make you cry, while others simply leave you in sheer awe and no words are sufficient.   Aldous Huxley agrees.  He said once, “After silence that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.”  Or Mark Twain who said, “Music is better than it sounds…”  Yes, “Music has charms to soothe a savage heart” –that’s how William Congreve put it.   “Music is the only language in which we cannot say a mean or sarcastic thing”—that’s what Lord Erskine believed.  No matter how you put it, there is something heavenly and divine when we hear a sweet and melodious tune.

I’ll never forget when I received my call to ministry. I was playing the piano, a version of “My Living Shall Not be in Vain.”  The words and music ministered to me deeply and I realized that something beyond me was calling me forth to serve.  It was a private moment but it was as if the Great Spirit was speaking to me through word and song.  I’ll never forget that moment—the deep thought, the contemplation, the apprehension, the tears—it was my call!  That moment changed my destiny and is a major reason why I am here today.  It was music that brought me here; it was music that inspired a very deep spiritual moment in my life.

So you see, now I understand why Lauren Bacall said “I wish Frank Sinatra would just shut up and sing.” His words ministered to many aspects of her being.  This is the power music has over us.  As I said, I don’t know why music has such power, I just know that it is much like the concept of God in that “I cannot articulate nor fathom what it is, from whence it comes or wither it goes, nor do I understand the magnitude of its vastness!” I just know that music moves me and I love a good song.

The words of one of those Sesame Street sing-a-long songs come to mind: “Sing.  Sing a song.  Make it simple to last the whole night long.  Sing of good things not bad.  Sing of happy not sad…”  Then another song rings in my ears:   “Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us. Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us.”  Finally, words I sang at the end of university choir rehearsal bode well here as I close:  “A bell is not a bell until you ring it and a song is not a song until you sing it.”  A special thanks to all of you singers and players.  We are honored by your gifts in song.  Move us to a higher plain.  Amen.

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