This is the third post of the series, the other two being: Ear-caressing Sound and Body-caressing Sound.

I think soul-caressing sound is more often experienced, and by more people, than the other two.

It is similar, however, in that we can experience it over and over again, but without realizing that we are experiencing it. We just think ‘Wow, that is really inspiring, or engaging’, or  all of a sudden our eyes are tearing up, or we become energized, after listening to a particular  movement or melody – but then proceed to ignore it.

But if we stop and realize what is happening to us, we can, I feel, more fully experience what is happening.  We can open up to the experience, making sure we don’t fight it, but rather embrace it. This puts is in a little better position of controlling what is happening, which does have its ego-ist issues, but in aggregate allows us to experience soul-caressing more often, and to avoid much of the ‘down’, the ‘crashing’ , when the experience [musical passage] is over.

We were listening to Madonna: Live (the Confessions Tour) a few days ago, and I kept getting all these emotions filling me, unwittingly, tossing me from poignant, to upbeat, to energized… I imagine this was in large part influenced by her very upbeat tone of voice as she sang and talked / rapped to 10s of thousands of fans who are in love with her.  [The professionalism of these shows by several of the top women vocalists is staggering. Not like the old days where a bunch of drunk  and high musicians go out in front of all these people and kind of ‘wing it’. Not that there isn’t  a place for spontaneity, and I personally prefer it, but still have to admire the show that some of these more ‘modern’ musicians put on].

But I didn’t WANT to experience these emotions. I had work to do and things to plan, and to think about  –  not the least of which was trying to understand  just how good the sound was that  we were listening to. Some of the time I was even in another room, just overhearing the music from afar –  and still, in the end, I just had to realize ‘soul-caressing’ was going on; something was happening to me and I just needed to try and enjoy it [and to try and not let Neli  see me tear  up  –  she always thinks it is so ‘cute’ and ‘endearing’. Argh. I am a guy. We are only supposed to be cute and endearing when we want to be ;-)] .

Unlike drug-like sound in general, which is kind of a catch-all for all sorts of [fun] effects that music can generate in our minds, soul-caressing is just the part of drug-like  sound that reaches out and grabs our soul,  it affects ‘us’, that entity we call ‘me, myself’, our ego, directly. It is not always pleasant, or welcome, but if we acknowledge it  we can better accept it –  and maybe make time and place to enjoy it.

Otherwise a little-bit lower fidelity might be called for – and we can understand why some people just do not want truly high-fidelity, rich, engaging music in their lives. It can be intense.