A humpback whale and her calf adrift for thousands of miles, searching for food. An ocean boiling in a lanternfish feeding frenzy. Kelp forests and crystal reefs and sharks hunting in stormy gray waters. As The Blue Planet soundtrack plays through my headphones, these are the cinematic stories that scroll through my head. I love music like this because it has a special way of transporting me to another world. And over time, I noticed that all my favorite soundtracks came from movies and shows I’d watched before. For some reason, music coupled with a recognizable story is more powerful than music alone.
Spurred by this realization, I sought to find stories in other, non-soundtrack music. I started with the Chopin classics I had played for nearly a decade without a second thought. When I read up on the chronically ill, introverted composer unable to marry the love of his life, Chopin’s music took on new meaning. After years of listening to his Ballades, I could suddenly feel his anger emanating from the crashing chords, touch the anguish trembling on each rubato, and watch his heart quicken with the pace of the music. With just a bit of context, I could feel his pain and suffering across hundreds of years and thousands of miles.
Soon, stories started popping up in all my music. Many of them weren’t even real. They were figments of my wildest imagination: an orphan boy floating on cumulus clouds or fighter jets tearing open the sky as they fought an apocalyptic enemy. I started listening to prog rock, grunge, and hip-hop. I listened to stories from the past, the future, and the other side of the planet. I listened to music, the one universal language that tears through all the barriers of time, space, culture, religion, hate, and division. With emotional connection, music exposed me to the power of all the diverse human stories around me. And in college, I hope to continue to share and listen to everyone I meet from a place of empathy.