Life is Movement

(Flow from the perspective of a musician)

By Mehry Lalezarian

What makes you feel alive?   Breathing, a beating heart, walking with a friend or stepping in stride with a friend in need—to name a few.  Could there be life without movement?  Even as we speak, so many expressions hint to the need for movement.  “I’m in the flow,” “go with the flow,”  “to catch your stride,” “ride  the wave….”  We can hardly speak the English language without using these expressions! We see unmistakably obvious movement all around us, like cars on the road, birds in flight or a preschooler dancing to the beat of a drum.  But movement and flow are also present in a hidden world all around us—a world which is the essence of our being.  And if you look closely at the phenomenon of sound, it’s the epitome of this concept.

Imagine a glossy black grand piano, top wide open, Yuga Wang sits down and fills the room with a plethora of beautiful sound waves on the instrument conjuring emotion and imagination—and sometimes even goose bumps.  How does the magic happen?  Where is that special connection between this physically dense instrument, our physically fluid bodies and the unseen dimension that compels our joy to come alive?  There is an intersection between science and holiness when we feel the visceral uplifting qualities of music.  Whether Chopin’s widely acclaimed Nocturnes (Linked Here), Stevie Wonder’s groovy songs like Isn’t She Lovely   (linked here) or your favorite House Music, (admittedly, I am too advanced in my age to be familiar with the titles but I do enjoy the hip sounds and beats!)    (linked here), there is a shift in our state of being when we experience music.  And the overarching concept as we explore the meaning behind the experience is movement.  It starts with a vibration—like the strings of the piano after an attack from the hammer, or the vocal folds of a singer oscillating with the flow of breath. Each vibration pushes air molecules whose momentum push through more and more air molecules until they create waves

of air in contraction and rarefaction producing sound. There’s a flow in the works already. And once those waves reach our ears, there’s a domino effect with that momentum traveling through our bodies. The brain perceives the vibes, sends signals to the body, and even more “waves” of dynamic activity  begin to occur by route of the nervous  system.  Most distinctly they affect the vagus nerve which runs from the brain through all the major internal organs including the gut and the heart.  As traveling vibes affect the vagus nerve, heart rate can shift, the gut is stimulated and then hormones and emotions can set off even more signals that move through the extended digestive organs and lungs. 

Vibrant visceral vibrations from mere air—air that is invisible—set on a course, touch our entire being and effect our composition so powerfully that our chemistry and our bodily faculties are triggered to a distinct new level.  And it’s all rooted in a single action that initiates resonance and flow. Those sound waves not only hit our ears, they also hit anything else in the room, which affects their overall journey and how they are heard.

The influence of sound extends beyond our own bodies. Even inanimate objects can respond to these invisible waves.  Another magical phenomenon involving sound waves and vibrations is sympathetic resonance. A single note sung or played on any instrument with another instrument present in the same room will cause the actuator/sound source of the untouched instrument to resonate at the exact same pitch. In other words, if I sing the note C in a room with a piano, that C string on the piano will begin to also vibrate. This is because when the sound waves travel, they automatically pick up on and begin resonating with their matching frequencies.  Again, something is brought alive by continual motion. A sound is born, literally out of thin air!¹

In the end, waves of sound make us feel invigorated, uplifted and connected as we flow with vibes that trigger within us a transformation of sorts.  No matter if they are physical or mental feelings and transformations; they are the stuff of life, making something, somewhere move— without which we would be more like a stagnant object than a human being with a deep-seated life source.

Perhaps that is why we instinctively say, “That song really moved me.” More than a figure of speech, it may be one of the most profound descriptions of what music—and life itself—actually does. 

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Notes:

¹ If you would like to experiment with sympathetic resonance on a piano to see for yourself, the damper pedal will need to be depressed on the piano.  This is because there is a default mechanism on the piano that dampens the notes so as to diminish unwanted mixed sound waves when playing.