Belly Vue

Finding my music was finding another piece of my soul.

I always knew music meant something to me, I never doubted that it didn’t. As a kid I would jump on top of my grandparents’ bed singing jingles from commercials I heard on television. I would strum my out of tune blue butterfly guitar from Walmart, sing my heart out, and perform as if I were opening my world tour. I loved music, of course, but I never understood why. 

One of my mother’s favorite songs “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen would be played on repeat in car rides. I remember the first time she played that song, it was like magic. We were on the highway, driving back from who knows where, she flipped on the song and started singing off tune. I was mesmerized. Not by my moms singing, but by the song. I started seeing colors, blasts of bright neon light poured my vision. I knew they weren’t really there, but it felt like it. I felt every single lyric of that song in my veins and my chest sank in the best way possible. It sank making room for what would complete my soul. I can still feel that, I can feel it as if it just happened again. Thats when it really clicked, that music — was more. 

Ever since that moment I heard music everywhere. I heard it while my Nana was washing dishes, while the oven went off, the sweeping, the cars passing by, nearly everything. I would hum whatever I would hear, and it would be stuck in my head for days until I figured out the lyrics. The problem came when I couldn’t do anything but write lyrics. I had my blue butterfly guitar but the strings were so off tune, and the plasticky reverb wasn’t cutting it for me. 

My dad picked me up from school one day and took me over to his house. It was always the usual: I’d finish up my typing homework than sit in my room searching “backing tracks” or kareoke I could sing along to. But that day I heard something from my dad’s room. I heard music. Not from a speaker, but first from a piano, then a guitar. I never knew he could play them. I never really acknowledge them at all. I lifted from my bed, snagged my Ipad and sat outside his door recording everything. I still remember what he was playing. I cant recall the song, but I can recall what is sounded like, what it felt like, what I saw. Instead of seeing these bright neon lights, I saw warmth. Like a hazy orange aura hugging around me. I remember replaying that video over and over, trying to replicate it on that same blue guitar. My dad saw me of course, and he handed me his old, broken, Sears guitar. I’m forever grateful for that guitar. I named him Freddie (as in Freddie Mercury). 

I never really learned a specific song. For the first year, all I really did was look up chords and try to come up with my own songs. They were never brilliant, but they were something. That’s all that mattered to me. I still remember one of the first songs I ever wrote, it was titled “I Want to Be Seen”. It was catchy, thoughtful, and most importantly, truthful. I poured my heart into that song. But it still didn’t feel quite right.

After picking up guitar and sticking with it for a couple of years, I decided I wanted more. For Christmas I asked for a keyboard. I never received one, so I did the thing any child would do. I asked again, and again, and again, until I added a ukelele to the list, than a new guitar. Finally, I bought my own ukelele, and 50 dollar keyboard from Amazon. The ukelele was good quality, I still use it. But the keyboard was a different story. It was so crappy sounding it was comical. I sort of tucked it away — that was until June. 

On June 1st, I met a very important person. Now I didn’t know it at the time, but he would help me and push me to (somewhat) achieve what I’ve been looking for. 

We first really bonded, when he told me he was learning to play piano. I told him I was trying too, but the not-so-great piano I bought made it particularly hard. He told me my piano couldn’t be as half as bad as his, I obviously begged to differ. We argued for a little, until he eventually showed me. Turns out we had the same keyboard the whole time.

I remember after that I found the will to practice more, because if he could practice on it, and be able to play decently well, I would be able to. So I began practicing. Not learning songs, but chords. I did the same thing I did with my guitar, I began to write before I learned any other songs. That worked for a while until my birthday when I got my beloved guitar — Morrissey — after my favorite band The Smiths.

The Smiths were always important. My favorite book was (and always will be) The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and in the book contains my favorite song: “Asleep”. My beautiful Yamaha, my very important Yamaha. I played that guitar until my fingers bled, and I wish that was an exaggeration. 

After Morrissey I though it would be nice to get an upgrade for my keyboard. For Christmas that year I asked my dad a month in advance. He knew I was getting better at playing and we came to the agreement that if we could find a cheap, nice guitar, we would split the payment. To my luck, we visited guitar center and found this beautiful keyboard on sale: 300 dollars, 150 each. I happily paid and played it day and night. Actually learning songs this time. 

I spent hours, upon hours, upon hours, practicing and practicing, writing and writing. And don’t get me wrong, the songs I wrote were good. But they never gave me that same feeling I would feel when I listened to music. It was good music, but never good music. I remember constantly rewriting lyrics, getting frustrated each time because it would never be good enough. Or I would change up chords, progression, finger picking patterns, trying to get that synthesia feeling again— but it never worked. I put down music for a while after that. 

For about 3 or so months I never touched any of my guitars. I never even listened to music on the radio. I remember thinking: “whats the point of this music, if I cant feel any soul within it”. 

For that 3 months I spent it working on sports and school. I was working my butt off, training, working out, studying, working on projects. I stressed myself out to the point where I just broke essentially. I was depressed. I lost all motivation for anything, I started crying myself to sleep, eating less, and keeping myself up at ridiculous hours trying to figure out ways to work out my feelings. I wanted to touch my guitar, I wanted to touch my piano, but I never did. 

Traveling to my grandma’s house in California was a shifting experience. I remember she was scrolling through videos on her phone, and I sat next to her, still feeling empty — to say the least. Then she showed me the video she was watching. It was of this beautiful ocean, and mountain view. She slowly turned up the volume and I heard music. I never stopped hearing music around me. Again — music was always there. In every noise, not to mention in public. I heard it but never listened. The song playing on her phone was the first song I really listened to in a while was Je Te Lesserai Det Mots by Patrick Watson. I remember hearing the piano, and his voice, and I saw this violet color. It wasn’t like an aura, or harsh beams of light, but something I had never really seen before. It was as if a stream of water was surrounding us. Like the moonlight hitting the ocean at the perfect angle to wear it almost sparkles of purple. Later that night I played that song on my headphones over and over, falling asleep dreaming of laying in the stream, floating in it, living in it— and on our way home from the airport I made my dad blast it in the car, window rolled down, and my hair blowing. I found my music again. 

To learn is to understand, to understand is to love, and to love is to feel.

A song cant be your favorite unless you understand it. After coming home from California, the first thing I did was learn Je Te Laisserai Det Mots on piano. I then learned it on guitar, learned how to sing it, and translated the lyrics until it was like the song was apart of my body. It blent in perfectly with my flesh and bones. After I learned Asleep, because again: to learn is to understand, to understand is to love, and to love is to feel. Whatever understanding, loving and feeling means to you, interpret it, mend around it. Apply it. A song isn’t your favorite, if you don’t know what it means to you. 

I started listening to music again, but this time real music. Real music to me. Music that made me see those colors. Wether they were harsh, dim, bright, dull, flowing, beaming, whatever. If I saw something, I felt something. That’s how I knew a song had soul. I also started playing more music. Music never healed my depression, but it definitely helped guide me out of it. Writing my own songs was scary after not having picked up my guitar. My Tio gifted me this beautiful cherry red Fender I called Eddie, after stranger things, and even with this it was hard. 

I remember one night, I was laying in bed, staring at the ceiling, trying to envision these colors, what they would sound like, look like. I started humming. Thats how I started writing again. I immediately got up out of bed, sat a microphone down, and hummed into it. I played chords on my guitar to correspond, and started writing down lyrics. Not lyrics like before, but lyrics that really felt real. Everything I felt poured out onto these sheets of paper until it was a song. Playing it fully, was a feeling I never felt before. It was almost as with every strum I could see the light flow out of the guitar and swallow my room. It wasn’t a specific color. More of a prism, that flooded my room and made it sort of kaleidoscope looking. I never titled the song. I don’t think it ever needed a title. I simply couldnt title it. It was whatever I felt in my soul, whatever somebody else would feel in there soul, so it wouldn’t only be my song, but hopefully someone else’s. This, was music. 

I have gained skill since then, also new guitars, but no matter the price tag, or time spent. I still listened to music, I still wrote it, played it, but most importantly I felt it. Deep in my soul awakes a warmths like no other. A sort of fire. Music — to me — is soul. Some indescribable feeling. Music is to learn, to understand, to love, to feel. If not— its not music.

That’s what music means to me.