• Registered: 2006-02-11

Topic: Musings on Opera

I'm a very musically inclined person. I must listen to music every day or I feel like a part of me begins to entropy and die. Music can move and change me like nothing else can. I know that most people like music to a certain degree, some more than others, but for me, listening to certain kinds of music is an absolutely intense religious, or if you will, spiritual experience. Sometimes music moves me so deeply that it's actually a painful experience, but after the pain comes calm and a sense of having been given a balm.

Yeah, so I don't listen to a lot of so called popular music. I like a lot of rock, jazz, pop, etc. but don't feel like they really aid me on my quest for enlightenment, though there are of course some exceptions. The band Interpol, for example, is, I believe, the greatest rock band in existence. Their song The Specialist in particular takes me on a soul journey, one that is painful in its intensity but one that simultaneously induces profound growth in me.

Opera, ah, how I could wax poetic about the beauties and power of opera for days on end. I've been consumed by opera since I was in my early teens. I could never think of opera as simply 'music', it is a gateway to the secret musings of the soul, the pulse of one's life force, the very essence of what it is to be human. I don't weep very often as a rule, yet play practically any aria, even a happy one, and I am beset by tears and go through an intense emotional rebirth. It is the joie de vivre of opera, the sublime, unadulterated beauty, passion and emotion of it that causes such a lachrymose reaction.

I've been involved in vocal studies for the past eight years or so and when I perform, it's as if everything that chains me to this material existence, to the matrix, if you will, is disolved and I am enveloped in diaphanous, etheral truth and beauty. When I sing, when I listen to opera, in particular certain arias, I feel my immortality, my conection to the cosmos, the spark of divinity I think is in all of us. Truly the voice is the greatest of all instruments. I love the arts in general, painting, dancing, lliterature, you name it, and all these things have made me who and what I am, but nothing, absolutely nothing will ever compare to opera. I think that if I ever encountered a goddess, say the Persian goddess Anahita or maybe Persephone, she would descend from the heavens in a whirling cloak of violet muslin, her feet unshod, surrounded by a thousand soprano voices singing in tandem and perfect harmony. I've never in my life encountered anyone who feels for opera as I do, which is ok I suppose, if a bit frustrating. It's like most people who appreciate opera do so on a 3D level and are not able to attain the vista of seeing the true meaning, grandeur and preternatural glory of opera. I don't know why I can, why I've always been able to. I think that if each soul has its own personal language, that is, if every soul has a specific mode of expression it most deeply resonates with that mine must be music and opera in particular. Take any human experience or sentiment, no matter how bland or commonplace, no matter how absurd or melodramatic and pair it with opera and the result is absolute sublimeness, heart rending magnificence.

After opera, I'd say that classical music, traditional Persian music and Chinese opera are the types of music I feel the closest affinity for. Mozart, Albinoni, Gluck, Bach, Debussy, Shahram Nazeri, Mohammad Shajarian, Schubert, Chopin, Liszt, even Philip Glass on a lesser level, all are regarded as my soul companions, lovers of my spirit and intellect. On a daily basis I'll be listening to an aria, like Vivaca Genaux singing Qual guerriero in campo armato, which was written for the immortal Farinelli, and I feel as if my mind will surely explode at the overwhelming beauty and sheer emotional ferocity of it. A friend once explained this concept as sturm und drang but I can't fully accept that. I think the reason I react so strongly to opera is that my mere human mind and soul in its present state cannot fully comprehend and deal with the living, breathing entity that is opera. I guess one could say that in a very real sense, opera is my very raison d'etre. Opera serves to unite me with the immortal, the everlasting. How could I ever reagrd it as 'just' music?

My thoughts here are entirely subjective, hence I do not mean to down play anyone else's experiences and feelings regarding music. I'd like to know, does anyone else have such feelings about any type of music? Does music in any way link you to enlightenment and clarity of being?

"A dream has power to poison sleep"
-Percy Bysshe Shelley
  • Registered: 2005-12-01

Re: Musings on Opera

It makes me happy that opera gives you a taste of the eternal.

That's what music is for, IMO, and different music can effect people in different ways.

It's amazing how much music is in the world and I think it is positive.

Lyrics, on the otherhand, could be seen as negative ?!


Opera has never done it for me.

I don't know why ?

I've seen a few.



I like most music but I choose to play jazz.

There is a certain excitment, freedom and adventure that I feel right before I begin a solo.

There is a zone.

Jazz at its best is like channelled emotion from, well, god knows where.

It is similar to meditation, where you try and bypass the ego and just feel your way.




.... or so I am told.

google's Website

3 Reply by RonD (edited by RonD 2006-02-20 12:43:44)

  • RonD
  • Guest

Re: Musings on Opera

I believe music can link you to enlightenment, and higher planes.  I've been studying Healing music, and would love to find more information on the subject.

As I'm writing, I'm switching between "Opera" and "Soundscapes" on Cable.

Opera is so powerful.  Singing it must be very transformative.  The intensity of the vibrato almost hyjacks my nervous system at moments.  Maybe like a deep tissue massage.  I respect it, and will expand my view of it.

Soundscapes or New Age music is more soothing for this tender heart.  The subtle harmonics instill relaxation.  I transcend more.  The focus is not as direct, a soft massage.

I love hearing you speak how music can be a balm for pain.  While I sang very young, my songwriting began through the extreme emotions of the early teens.  I took all my suffering and passion to lyrics.  I actually had 300 songs by eighteen.  They became sonic snapshots of my heart.  And then the most exhilerating moments in my life have been in the recording studio.  Ahurani, I hope you experience great studios with all your training.

And I've learned that what thrills most great musicians is jazz.  The freedom of the melodies let them be spontaneous and soar.

The vibrations of the strings in a piano also consistantly comfort and transport my soul.  I'm wondering to just what plane or star system that is?  Maybe some dimensonal bridge is in all our DNA just waiting to be activated.

And I still love the most tender music of the early seventies, like Bread and James Taylor.  Maybe heart songs will return in a new form by the likes of the Indigo children, once this world stops fighting.

Love to hear more on music transporting the spirit, healing pain or moving things.  Those subwoofers are doing something to us

Is there info out there on the effects of certain frequencies, and the bending of tones on the body?

  • Registered: 2006-02-11

Re: Musings on Opera

google wrote:

Jazz at its best is like channelled emotion from, well, god knows where.

Yes, exactly! I love jazz, especially musicians like Gillespie and the Ray Brown Trio but I'm mostly a sucker for smooth jazz. Are you familiar with Preston Love? I got to meet him and hear him perform not long before he passed away. It was an honor.



RonD wrote:

I believe music can link you to enlightenment, and higher planes.

Couldn't agree more!



RonD wrote:

Opera is so powerful.  Singing it must be very transformative.  The intensity of the vibrato almost hyjacks my nervous system at moments.  Maybe like a deep tissue massage.  I respect it, and will expand my view of it.

Transformative-that's a great word to express what it's like to sing opera. When I really get into singing, it's like I've left the physical plane and am so absorbed in feeling and being the music that I am not aware of my surroundings or what I'm doing. It's amazing. I do hope you look further into opera. For me, although I fell in love the first time I really heard it, I underwent years of endeavoring to better understand and know opera. It's like all fine things in life--one has to put some effort into fully appreciating and understanding it.


RonD wrote:

The vibrations of the strings in a piano also consistantly comfort and transport my soul.  I'm wondering to just what plane or star system that is?  Maybe some dimensonal bridge is in all our DNA just waiting to be activated.

That's beautiful. Why is it so hard to find people who are affected by music as we are? I've known a number of professional classical musicians in my life, as well as many students hoping to make careers in musical performance, and with one single exception, I've never once met one of them whom I felt truly understood the scope and spiritual powers of music. It's like they were all technicians and played or sang with precision and skill but no soul. Makes me sad.



RonD wrote:

Is there info out there on the effects of certain frequencies, and the bending of tones on the body?

Probably but I haven't come across any, but then I wasn't looking for it. Have you tried googling it?

"A dream has power to poison sleep"
-Percy Bysshe Shelley