The Mystery of Music
Music wields power. I don’t fully understand it, but music can affect your mood, soothe your soul, instill joy, and unite strangers. Music can make you feel like dancing, even when you are tired or alone in the shower. It can evoke powerful emotions. Music is even good for your heart. Yet, how it accomplishes all of these feats seems to be one of the great mysteries of life.
In high school, my love for music led me to participate in vocal competitions at both the state and national level. Our female quartet placed 1st at state, automatically qualifying us to compete during nationals at Rutger’s University in New Jersey. While we were there, we took a day trip into New York City to see the sights. It was my first time to visit the “big apple”, and I was mesmerized by it, but my most vivid memory isn’t of the Brooklyn bridge, the Twin Towers, or the Empire State Building. It’s something that happened while visiting the Statue of Liberty.
The lines were long that day as we stood waiting to get a closer glimpse of the monument in New York Harbor. We had a large group of students in our tour group, and we were chatting lively (as teenagers tend to do). Those around us were also engaging in their own separate conversations. It was a typical line. That is, until we decided to start singing. As the four of us lifted our voices to sing “Way Up in Gloryland” in the style of a barbershop quartet, the deafening crowd noise quickly silenced. Hundreds of people began to listen — strangers from across the world, men, women, and children alike. As they listened to us sing the words to that four-minute song, we were joined together as one. We had connected — albeit for a short amount of time. The song ended, the audience applauded, and everyone went back to waiting in line like normal tourists, but for a small moment we shared something special — all because of the power of something as simple as music.
That memory came flooding back to me tonight as I watched a video filmed on Sunday at Newark Airport. Hundreds of passengers were stranded during a security lockdown. If you’ve ever been stuck at the airport due to a security lockdown, you know it’s not a happy place to be. People are upset, stressed, and cranky. Babies are screaming, and children are bored. But once again, here’s proof that music holds a mysterious power. It can help people overcome even the worst situations. Watch below as stranded passengers suddenly cheer up when a guitar-playing passenger leads an impromptu sing-a-long of “Hey Jude.”
The mystery of music, indeed.
