Great music often tells me... 

Great music connects us with ourselves and with each other. 

Carl Jung was a contemporary of Sigmund Freud. They mainly differed in that Jung thought there was evidence of a collective unconscious. An unconsciousness that virtually everyone shared, Freud thought this was mysticism. I agree with Jung. I think there is evidence of a collective unconscious . 

I treat myself and others better when I pay attention to not only my conscious thoughts but also my unconscious thoughts and thoughts from our collective unconscious . 

Music helps me do that. Connects me to myself and to other people. 

 

Great music often tells me... 

  Something everybody knows 

  Something unique about the artist 

  Something only I know...& maybe only subconsciously 

 

You say "Travis, what are you talking about? Are you getting weird?" 

Well, yes I'm weird but hey that's what great music often does for me. And it's what I usually feel in music I make. Sometimes there are lyrics, sometimes not. It's what happens when I listen to great music and it's remarkably the same when I write. 

Something everybody knows - I'm told, by something that, "we're going to think about this stuff for a little while". 

Something unique about the artist (me) - I talk to myself about this stuff. 

Something only I know...& maybe only unconsciously ...This part is a big deal for me. Usually there are no lyrics for this part, Words get in the way. I just listen & or play and thoughts drift. And when they drift I think I start to understand the stuff just a little bit better. 

The psychiatrist Carl Jung said he eliminated "critical attention, thus producing a vacuum in consciousness...this led to an expression of the mood, which had the result of bringing the affect nearer to consciousness, hence making it more understandable." 

Fancy words. But that's pretty much what great music does for me. 

Great music brings this stuff up to my consciousness and makes it just a little bit more understandable. Even though I don't fully understand what it is trying to say. And sometimes, I don't have clue. It's more like say, dreaming. And like dreaming it either happens or it doesn't. I don't have much choice in the matter. 

 

For example in the song "Amen" 

  • "You can say Amen".... 

Something everybody knows. Everybody knows Amen. Some times I think it means something a bit different than other times but I pretty much know we're not talking about flower pots. 

Usually the first time a song comes up I don't even know why. Something just up and tells me that this Amen stuff is what we're going to think about for awhile. 

 

  • "My stepfather prayed every morning..." 

Something unique about the artist, that is me. When I think of Amen & related stuff this is some of what comes to mind. 

 

  • The melody plays, no words, let's me relax and process, just sit... 

Thoughts only I know...& maybe only subconsciously - that's where the piano comes in for me. I sit back and just be. This is the magic and the mystery of the music to me

.

Somehow the music speaks or maybe it's that the music lets my subconscious talk. I don't know. 

That's just some of what great music does for me. 

The dream like relaxation from listening to great music is very similar to what happens when I write music or maybe I should say when music comes to me...but that's a topic for another time. 

So here's to internal peace, and world peace, by listening to great music.

Travis

 

 

Leave a comment