War Within Ourselves
What is war? That is a very good question. It can literally mean anything. It can mean war with yourself, war in history, war with your community, war within your country or etc. Instead of trying to focus on only one aspect of war I decided to think of what war can make you feel. I sat at my piano and thought of how war would make me feel. I stopped thinking about the different variables war could be and started creating music based on what these thoughts made me feel. I did not stop once to correct myself if a music note did not sound right instead, I kept playing letting those imperfections become part of the piece because that is what life is: full of imperfections that we cannot always control. I played back the song I created on my recorder and reflected back on how the song made me feel. My first thought that I felt was that it reminded me of a story. A story of any individual and the impact war has on that person’s life. The story does not have any specific significance that it is related to but instead it is an unbiased story to any kind of war that is going on in the world whether it is war within yourself or current and past world issues. Instead, it is a story of the emotions of war that travels a long the every day occurrence of our world within our minds.
The piano song is about nine minutes long and I found it interesting how the length of my song depicts how long ones life could feel during war. Does it ever end? The piano song is the story of any individual in the world going by with their life until war keeps on interrupting their “normal” routines of their life and is a constant reminder one’s reality in the life of war. The melody starts to unfold but is constantly interrupted by abrupt notes that depict the constant battle between starting over your life after war and the constant battle of living with societies banters during war. While the song unfolds there is a constant struggle with the progression of the melody. Throughout the song, the melody becomes a tease to the story of an individual trying to regain control of their life during war. The melody starts and stops and starts for a little longer and stop and so on. The listener begins to feel like it has to “tip-toe” in society to avoid this constant abrupt notes. At the end of the song the melody starts to become happy however with the last of the abruptions the melody gives up the battle and becomes sad until the last abrupt note turns off the melody completely. It is a bittersweet piano song that at the end tells the tale of how we will always have some kind of war in the world and with that there will always be a constant battle that we will have to overcome over time.