Interview:

The sum total of all that one is, at any given moment in time, has an emotional tone, a spiritual sum, if you will, made up from all he or she has gone through since birth, and music can speak to that whole. It can help one feel seen and affirmed, from the core of their being. The only thing is, we depend on the state of our being, on the state of our soul, and music can speak to some part of our being that needs to be held, or encouraged, or even invented so that we can remain secure in ourselves. Beyond the mundane, is where music takes place; beyond the math of your checkbook, listing your groceries, and doing your laundry. Music can resonate to why it’s worth being alive. The way in which a musician can play, their touch, or the excellence of their mastery can viscerally remind you of what it might mean to be human, and that you are human; and because music goes under the skin, so to speak, to the core of your being, music can cause us dis-ease, disintegration, and even depression. Not all music lives up to the number of notes it has used, and often is not worth hearing, quite simply because it is of the spirit. For one thing, it can bore you to death.

To perform it is different, because you go to a place where you are out on the edge, where you trust the unconscious to be able to create what was not there before, and will not be again in the same exact way. You pay attention to how it all lives in the moment, while giving and sharing the essence of you, as you tangle its pieces together. All in one musical moment, be it a song or the length of a symphony, music can speak to the struggle, the discord, and discomfort we’ve born, the transcendence, acceptance, and sense of self-worth we’ve achieved, having made it to now. Music can keep us from suicide. If religion could honor mankind, instead of bringing him shame, degradation, and bloodbath, it might come up to the spiritual value of music. In the realm of everyday human experience, music may be the lead process of what one could call God, or the creation of life after birth. On second thought, the study of our inner and outer relationships might be the lead, but that still needs its own accompaniment, and its visceral reminder of why it’s all worth it.

“Music can resonate to why it’s worth being alive.”
– Erik Darling, author of “I’d Give My Life!: A Journey By Folk Music”