Connection
A Wall of Sound. Hands, clapping in a rhythm instinctive and visceral. Hearts beat too, in the same cadence. Whistles and hoots, snapping fingers and drumming feet. A wave of praise that rises from a gathering of strangers and reaches out to the performer. The heartfelt wah, wah! The hands keeping time with the tabalchi, tossing back his hair, smiling his sweet smile. The nodding heads, the swaying bodies. The singer questions, the listener answers. The smiling faces as the music delights, awakes and celebrates. The moment of connection. An offering of song, a gift of music. A tumultuous thanksgiving.
Thousands of lighters, hands in the air, the pulsing of a stadium to the beat of a drum. The roar of recognition as the first notes play, the high emotion as the solo ends. The upturned faces, arms reaching out, tears rolling down. For those of us who missed seeing the great rock shows of our youth, there is YouTube. And the groups that are still touring. We don’t care that we are the afterthought audience. Or that the band members are getting on in years. They are still the spandex or leather clad swaggerers of our dreams, big hair and bigger talents, and we can still sing Sweet Child O’ Mine with the best of stadium audiences. I dream of being one in an audience of thousands, one voice, one heart. The spotlight on the lone figure, too far away for ordinary mortals to see, the guitar that strums, the drums that take up the beat, the hot stadium lights, the strangers sweating and swaying all around you. The music, the sound connects and reconnects. You catch the eye of a stranger mid-chorus and for that brief moment, you are best friends, rebels, lovers, whatever the song demands.
We’ve all been a part of it – at the end of four exquisite movements, singing the great anthems word for word, matching the singer as he holds the mic out in invitation or laughing in sheer delight when the raga ascends and ascends, a songbird reaching for the horizon.
This energy must be the most positive in the universe. Caught up in the music we love, we are suspended for that moment in a web of everything positive – the hate and anger we carry are left behind, the despair and gloom seem to be in another time and place.
Music concerts. In halls with the most beautiful acoustics, or open air amphitheatres hazy with smoke and flickering lights. In sports stadiums, or in a little bar with the tiniest stage. The applause is sometimes polite, when the connection between musician and audience is fragile or forced. Sometimes, it is muted, when the understanding is missing or the message of the music is lost. But mostly, it is rapturous, ecstatic, a voluntary losing of the mind to find the self. Music connects.
In a packed auditorium this evening, an amazing lady from Georgia (on my mind, sweet Georgia), accompanied by musicians from the Midwest and Netherlands, connected with jazz fans, aficionados and the merely curious in hot and sultry Mumbai.
She confided that she was newly in love and waiting to go back home. We, in turn, fell in love, with her voice, her force, her energy. We shouted Don’t Go, she responded I’ll be back. The little girl sitting next to me giggled and bounced in her seat as all the grown ups around her signed L.O.V.E. in the air. She felt it too. The connection, the endless web that music weaves around anyone who listens with heart and mind and soul, as much as with body and senses.