Music is one of the most important things in my life. It's kept me going in hard times, and it remains my most precious hobby. So much in fact that I minored in it at college. The first time I went to Italy I had just taken music history 1, which is when we cover the more ancient forms of western music. In the class, we looked at sheet music from the middle ages and talked about some of the differences.
While walking around a museum and I caught this out of the corner of my eye. A massive hymnal, with staff lines and lyrics. I knew immediately what it was, though to everyone else it was just an old book with something they didn't understand written on it, their eyes not even processing that there was something within the glass container. I have a fascination with old things in general, but I love old books. They used to be rare and precious. This book would have been shared by a group of people.
Although I knew what it was, the music was unreadable for me--the words, I believe, were in Latin and even the notation was foreign. It would have been like me hearing someone speak middle English, like in the "Canterbury Tales." I would recognize that it was English, but I couldn't speak it nor make out all of what they were saying. Funny, how something so familiar to me as music could be so unknowable. It excites me. There's always a new door ready to be opened. Later on, I got me hands on some medieval sheet music. Let me know if you'd like to see a post about it!
Let me know in the comments how has music influenced your life!
Adventure on and don't forget to always be yourself!
Leah Miller
Music has brought me out of my comfort zone in ways I have always feared. But without music, I would not be the leader and friend I am today.
Side note, my last semester project was dedicated to translating musical notation from the Greek and medieval periods into modern notation. Boy was it difficult though. 😅