Can I get an Amen? ...Zola Ximiya

Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence says Wikipedia. So from that I am sure we can all derive that it’s a form of communication, right? Am I the only one that figures that that’s exactly what music is? Maybe it’s because I am only referring to music that consists of rhythms, melodies, pitches and words. NOT the stuff that has no words. I am not saying that the likes of jazz, trance is not good music. Maybe I am just not musically ‘intelligent’ enough to be able to decipher the message of a song that a musician is communicating, be it happiness or sadness with no words, though all jazz artists say they are communicating an emotion.

Music is said to be linked with mathematics, and math is linked to an evolution of humans, getting better and closer to an understanding of all things. Music in my opinion is getting better and better, and I have a silly theory that it can take you to heaven. Just like really beautiful tasting food I think music can also bring you closer to God.  I don’t think I am the only one that has sung a spiritual song and felt the presence of God right there with them, and been on some other kind of spiritual high.

So then the question I ask myself time and time again is what is the purpose of music? Is it to communicate or to enjoy on a road trip or relax to or to help you dissect life issues and resolve them? Is music prayer? I feel that I have to ask is music a way in which we pray? A sort of communication with God, the Universe; crying out rejoicing and or asking for solutions answers?

An example of knowledgeable ‘music’ is war cries. War cries are decades old and the only reference I have is the New Zealand’s haka, this, and I am sure we are all familiar with it and don’t need to Google it, because we are aware  of the intensity of that war cry . War cries are musical, I think, and from an outsiders view I would say that they merge the team in an energised ball of confident, forceful and aggressive energy. They also scare the living day lights out of their opponents. Music can be uniting is used to either form or bind groups together, National anthems are continuously used to do exactly that, the intensity of its effect varies. There is one country that I can think of immediately that has its National Anthem reaching its objective: America. The words invoke camaraderie and so much pride in one’s country, and therefore one self, and because of the emotions National Anthems evoke is why we have the famous pompous American attitudes.

Teenagers, adults, black, white, green all at some point in their lives had a point where they had to play a song because it would make them feel better, because it either replicated a feeling they once had or it put them in the space they needed to be in. I have a friend who played Beyonce’s love on top every single day for a month cause of what the words said. She had recently broken up with her boyfriend and she wished he could have just put her love on top. Only after a while did I realize that she was literally praying for him to do just that and that the words “baby it’s you, you’re the one I want, you’re the one I need” were the words that would get her all teary eyed and always at that point would she start balling.

Apparently music can lure you to hell some say. The illuminate are a group of people that work together with Lucifer, the musical angel, to lure you into a satanic life, and in a way straight to hell. There are many musicians said to be tied with this group Beyonce, Jay Z ,Rihanna and Kanye West. Whether all this is true would be a whole other article, but it just points out to me that music is a more emotional communication. These pitches, rhythms and words, have to be some sort of energy or force put out and or indulged in to serve an emotional and sometimes spiritual purpose, it maybe something as light as just getting you in a better mood ( an upbeat song) , or maybe a song that brings a shared emotion and with that emotion unity, it could be as deep as you singing a future you hope to have ,or something as binding as you singing yourself to hell.