Author: Celia

I have recently started reading the book This Is Your Brain On Music: The Science of a Human Obsession by Daniel J. Levitin and I thought reacting to each chapter would be an interesting experiment. So today I’m reacting to the Introduction. Basically in the intro it lays out the why’s and how’s of the book. His story of how headphones brought life and connection to music that he hadn’t experienced yet immediately hooked me. I was that kid. Music opened up a whole world to me that became my obsession. It allows you to learn and experience the world in such a different complex way, yet it’s also universal. He explains how he spent years as a record engineer, producer, and musician but ultimately went back to school to study many of his questions about why we all love music so much.

This one quote sat with me: “For the artist, the goal of the painting or musical composition is not to convey literal truth, but an aspect of a universal truth that if successful, will continue to move and to touch people even as contexts, societies, and cultures change.” (pg. 5) I think most of us are seeking understanding and answers in life, but that is malleable by so many factors. It is shaped by our experiences and emotions. Music speaks a language that can transcend everything. We get to relate to it in our own personal way and how amazing is that. When I listen to a song it often touches some part of my soul that has been left unscathed and then suddenly I’m feeling it. But what is so incredible is that another person can hear the same song and experience that too, but in their own unique way.

I’m looking forwarding to reading the next chapter and seeing what Mr. Levitin has to say on a subject that I am so passionately interested in.

I am always in awe of how music can reach such deep parts of your should and heal the wounds you might not have even known existed. There have been various moments where I’ve been caught off guard by how much a song can suddenly and unexpectedly bring me tears. After many years there are certain bands that I can pinpoint as being pivotal points of my healing journey.

1. Linkin Park – The nostalgia I feel when listening to this band is real! I am instantly back in high school, in my bright orange room sitting on the tie-dye comforter spending all my free time listening to music. High school was a difficult time for me. On the outside things may have appeared peachy keen to my peers and the world, but inside it was a very different world. I was dealing with lots of adult problems that I wasn’t meant to. Thank God Linkin Park hit the airwaves! I remember hearing them for the first time and I felt seen. Their lyrics were raw, powerful, full of rage and sadness, embracing all those feelings I had. Songs like “Numb” and “Somewhere I Belong” felt like personal anthems. I don’t know if people recognized that I wasn’t just jumping on the trend with this band, but I was identifying with them. The themes of their songs emulated my growing teenage angst and mental health struggle. There was something cathartic in the screams, the notes, the melodies, the lyrics, the whole package.
2. Pearl Jam – Now if you knew me in college this was my main band. College was a major changing point in my life. Everything that I had thought was going to be my life fell apart. I was thrown deep into depression. I did some things I’m not necessarily happy about, but in the end it was a learning experience. I resorted to music as my preferred form of therapy, and what’s better than a grunge band to channel all those depressive thoughts? Pearl Jam became something I related to on a deep level. There was something so freeing about them to me. I remember the first time I saw them in concert. It had rained the day before and of course we had lawn seats so the entire thing was mud. But when they started playing it all just faded away. The discomfort, the thoughts, everything. It was a moment and I loved every second of it. I would listen to them nonstop, I converted my friends to fans, I learned the majority of their catalogue on guitar. This was a band that helped me to process a lot of the confusion of those years into something more positive.
3. Green Day – Another band that was on heavy rotation during my college years was Green Day. This was a band that I connected to in a political way. I was a History major and as a millennial we were used to seeing the chaos of the world. Here was a band that was challenging the system. They were using their voices to say something that not only resonated with me, but many in our country at the time. Their concerts were an event! I had a professor in college even use one of their songs as a teaching moment in class (also that moment led me and one of my only college friends to meet, clearly we bonded over music). This band let me see that music and art can be used to relay something more, and have an impact on society.
4. Foo Fighters – Ok this one is very layered and personal to me. I have an eternal gratefulness for this band in particular. They have seen me through some of my absolute greatest days (my wedding) to some of my worst (postpartum depression). Here is a band that has literally inspired me to become a better version of myself. I had always like Foo Fighters, but later in my life they became a sort of life line for me. A band that had all the rock sounds I loved, but also more mature lyrics. These songs were hopeful to me. They reminded me of my lived experiences. I walked down the aisle to one of their songs to start my life with my husband. As I drove in to a doctors appointment listening to them I broke down realizing I needed some serious mental health help. I cried and sang my heart out at Boston Calling as we all collectively mourned and celebrated Taylor Hawkins. This one feels so hard to convey into words because there aren’t words to express my undying gratitude to a band that truly helped me to change into a much better version of myself.
5. Twenty-One Pilots – Well if this isn’t a band for someone on a mental health healing journey! Every album has songs that are so relatable it’s uncanny. I remember seeing them as an opener for Green Day and being intrigued. This past year my husband and I went to see them live for the first time since that opening act. We were blown away! Talk about a band who loves their fans, connects with them, spreads mental health awareness and hope, and makes killer music. Every time I hear one of their songs I’m moved, sometimes to tears.

So these are a few of the bands who have helped me on my healing journey. There are countless others, but I figured here’s a start. And over time I hope to share more in depth how all of these have impacted me. Please let me know what you think and if there are any that resonate with you.

Let the music continue to heal you

I won’t lie, I’m still grieving the end of “Stranger Things”. This show hold a very special place in my heart for so many reasons, but today I want to talk about what I noticed about the use of music in this show. Not only does it have a killer ’80s soundtrack, but it highlighted the connection between music and memory.

Our brains are a wild place (honestly I wouldn’t want to be a guest in mine many times) but they are also so intricate and mesmerizing. I have always been fascinated but the way music can trigger memories. It is like there’s a file box in your brain and keeps all the songs that somehow impacted your life. Good memories, bad memories, all the memories. There is a reason music is used in treatment of patients of dementia and Alzheimer’s, it can trigger memories of happier times or help create a moment of lucidity.

In “Stranger Things” we all know the song (that’s right “Running Up That Hill” by Kate Bush) that Max used to connect herself to the real world when she would be sucked into the trance of the Upside Down. It became her lifeline . It was a song that helped her cope with the death of her stepbrother, Billy, but became something so much more meaningful. It was her connection to her friends, love, safety and hope.

Now the importance of music and memory didn’t start with Max and Kate Bush. It was evident in the first season that music was going to play an interesting role in the show when we saw how Will and Jonathan bonded over music. Specifically “Should I Stay or Should I Go” by The Clash. We see them in a memory, before the Upside Down is a part of their everyday life, where they are sharing a moment while their parents fight listening to music. Jonathan shares his interests with Will and a bond is created. While Will is in the Upside Down he’s singing that song to ground him. It is his lifeline.

I don’t know about you but all of this is relatable to me. Music is my ultimate form of therapy. Music has always been my lifeline and I find it comforting to know that in this world others see the incredible power it has.

Remember to put on some tunes and be kind friends.

Well this has been a project that has been in my mind for at least a decade, probably more. I took the leap and I’m just going with it.

Many of us don’t think that one day we will rely so heavily on comping skills. The world piles it all on and we are left to figure it all out, Some of us are lucky enough to have people helping us figuring it out from the start, and others just have to navigate it themselves.

I don’t know exactly when I realized that music was a main coping skill for me, but it was definitely when I was young. I remember getting my first Walkman (yes I’m that old) and growing may collection of cassettes. It was an eclectic bunch, which would prove to be true throughout my life, and it continued to grow and provide me comfort and escape from my everyday life. My Walkman became permanently attached to me. Then it switched to the Discern, the iPod and now the phone. In the car, on the bus, in waiting rooms, hallways between classes, literally everywhere music fueled my life.

At 5 I started piano lessons and here was a whole new way to explore music. All I wanted to do was be a musician and share the thing I loved most in the world. I would learn songs that moved me, that connected to some part of my soul, even though I was young. I was lucky to have teachers who encouraged that and saw I had an innate talent to connecting to the emotional side of music, the part that you just can’t really teach. From there I learned drums and guitar, sang in choir, and taught piano for several years as well.

My life has been marked by several struggles, like everyone else. Things that I talk about openly, and others I still struggle to share. Music has been the one thing that has been my steady rock in an ocean of waves crashing around me. It has guided me through my first love lost, numerous loved ones deaths, career changes, marriage, postpartum , a pandemic, lifelong depression and anxiety, and everything in between. I can put on a song and be healed, seen, validated, angry, happy, transported, whatever I need in that moment. Music has an incredible power to connect us all on a deep emotional level.

This is a space I wanted to start to share these experiences. My journey with music has greatly been connected to my mental health journey as well. It is a complex web that I have been dissecting and feel the time is right to share with others. There is so much suffering and confusion in the world and if just one person feels seen by my story it was worth sharing.

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