What Music Does

it connects our souls, man.

I’m in a coffee shop that has wood floors. There is a basement below the shop. The floors squeak and flex a little. A guy at the table next to me is playing chess. He is tapping his heel against the aged floor. It gives a little under his excessive weight. I’m guessing he has a rhythm in his head that he is moving to. Some tune that probably helps him concentrate on his game. All I feel is the movement of the floor. It has no rhythm for me. It does nothing for my inner harmony. The pounding I hear is not the music he hears in his head. It is nothing more than a disturbance.

Contrast this experience with one of the same guy sitting at the same table next to me tapping his heel with the same rhythm, but this time a band is playing his tune across the room and we are all in harmony to the music. He’s feeling it, I’m feeling it, and everyone around us is feeling it. The pounding he delivers to the floor, the one that transfers to everyone around him, is one of rhythm. We are all in sync. That is what music does for the human soul.