Between the Notes
What music taught me about letting life through
Every musician knows the difference between playing the notes and playing the song.
You can learn every scale.
Memorize the changes.
Nail the timing.
But the song doesn’t live in the notes.
It lives in the space between them.
That space comes from living.
Playing the notes, we go through the motions.
We touch but don’t feel.
We practice expressing ourselves before life makes authentic expression possible. We sing before we've lived the song. We love before we know what love will cost us.
The practice comes first so the instrument is ready when the feeling arrives.
You are already feeling everything you think you’re blocking.
The body doesn’t have a wall.
It has a grip.
Holding something away from awareness still requires holding it.
Let yourself feel it.
In The Prophet, Kahlil Gibran writes that the lute which soothes the spirit is made from the very wood that was hollowed with knives. The deeper sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Think about that.
The instrument only makes music because something carved it open.
The hollow is both the damage and the design.
We grip because we are trying to hold together what life has carved away.
People.
Roles.
Ideas of what could or should have been.
Who we thought we were supposed to be.
We hold the shape of what is gone instead of letting the hollow exist.
But the hollow is where the music lives.
You are holding more than you know.
Even the things you took on without understanding are a part of your instrument.
We get stuck performing to protect belonging and keep things comfortable.
The notes ring false.
The music tells the truth you won’t.
To play with feeling, we have to feel.
If we try to pick out the notes, we pull the song apart.
If we feel it, we free it. And we can move something beautiful through the space that was carved for it.
Allow both joy and sorrow to move through you, and the music comes alive.
🎧 My debut album Save Point is out today. 12 songs, one story. Listen here.
It's always surprised me how the notes aren't really the music.