MUSIC, MYSTERY & ME

What is it about music that gives it the extraordinary power to transcend the barriers of language, culture, age and race and in the process, connect, influence and shape the world?

In my upcoming book for 2019, I'll be exploring this question of why music penetrates the core of the human spirit in such a unique way. As U2 frontman Bono once said, “Music can change the world because it can change people.” Or as Friedrich Nietzsche puts it, “Life without music, would be a mistake.”

Ever since humans became a species, they have found ways to make instruments, however primitive, to create musical frequencies by blowing, bowing, plucking and striking. We know that these frequencies, these ‘good vibrations’ have the power to mysteriously express our humanity in a myriad of ways, profoundly affecting and enriching our lives.

How many times has a piece of music taken you to a place of transcendence and perhaps got you wondering about the meaning and mystery of things, or simply made you want to get up and start dancing?

We make music. Walk, jog and drive to music. Unwind and fall asleep to music. Celebrate and cry to music. Enjoy candlelit dinners and communicate messages of undying love through music. We can even be transported back in time to a poignant memory through music. We express our praise and worship through music, get married to music and then, come the ‘ashes to ashes dust to dust moment’… our loved ones honour our lives and bid us farewell, to music.

All my life, music has been the lens and the portal through which I have explored with eyes wide open the sacred hum of life.

In this book, I explore how music has profoundly shaped not only my life, but the world around me, and consider whether there’s a deeper mystery going on? A culmination of my desire to bring together the two formative pathways of my life’s passions and endeavours. If you love music but don’t care about the God question, I hope there’s enough to satisfy and provoke a few thoughts about the potent force of music in all our lives, and how our passions have meaning beyond the fleeting.

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