MSL (Music as a Second Language)

Everybody listens to music or at least has at one point in their lives. Music can do alot of things for people. It can be used to help people who have debilitating psychotic disabilities like Dementia or Alzheimer's. It can be used to send a specific political message across and change peoples opinions or challenge how we think. It can help console people when they are sad or just add to joy and laughter when spending time with friends. It is what helps drive movies and is all around us. But what is music? Music is the most abstract form of art there is. Nothing is as complicated to understand or as easy to appreciate.  When you listen to "Moonlight Sonata" what do you feel? Do you feel sad or alone? Or how about Canon in D do you feel warm and happy? As someone who is a musician (though a mediocre one) music isn't just something listen to. It becomes something you read and recognize with it becomes a second language. I have been constantly flirting with the idea of being a music major but then i realize it would be impractical to do so. But this music, this mystery is something that i long to understand. Something i wish to manipulate to paint pictures in the mind of people. Ive never been able to sing but have always had an ear for music.  I find it truly brilliant when i listen to a song and all the pianist has to do is change one note in a chord and the entire mood and atmosphere of the song changes. My favorite part of mass is the singing and listening to the choir (even if it is the same song every Sunday). Listening to how the singer and pianist reflect the mood of the psalm by playing in a Minor or Major key.  To be able to take something as bulky and cumbersome as a piano and make such a soft beautiful sound out of it is something that should be awe inspiring.  But music truly is a different language. You need to learn how to count and how to tell what dialect you should speak at a certain point in the song.  If you can learn to read the language it tells you how fast or slow, how loud or soft you should play.  Out of all of the foreign languages in the world music is the only one that everybody can relate to. You may not be able to speak the language. But everyone can feel it.