Contemplations

If music arises from the soul, then listening to music should be a valued and sacred event. To choose for oneself the time, the place and the kind of music one values is indeed a blessing in any life, for this choice will allow the invocation of the possibilities for a deeper realization of the message available through the language of music.
Classical music connotes order. Moments and times tend to challenge, to bring a general strife home to an individual and to us all. So, to create a profound mental and emotional context which soothes through an innate orderliness and which speaks directly to an holistic emotional vision should be a gift to the listener, to the one who simply enjoys music.
A true composer is one who has crossed the unsafe waters and has achieved a measure of realization of self that allows an expression of the inner truth which matches a realization of the reality that we all strive to bear and to know and to transcend through active know-how. The idea is to communicate this deeper realization to others through pleasing resolution, and to do so even with the imposition of the tumult, the discord, the trying moments from which we try to learn to become more complete. Any composer of classical music hopes and works in the art of creating music to cause others who hear this music to become more aware and to be inspired by the sounds, to drive more to the truth all about us and within us. Since this mode of creation, at least for this composer, is highly contemplative, the ultimate idea is to inspire in the listener a kind of contemplation, also.
Music -- all music -- has a way to bring about a desire and mode for contemplating. Classical music is more abstract ; moreover, this is true especially if it is non-verbal such as are these works of art on the electronic keyboard. The abstract realm of cognition allows a profound approach to the nurture of a mental attitude. Once a basic attitude of surrender to the more subtle message of a composer is attained by a listener, then a certain contagion will confer a contemplative appreciation of that message. But that message carries over into life's other and more involving, vital activities and concerns. Perhaps that is why so many music enjoyers believe in listening to their favorite pieces of music no matter where they are, or no matter what else they are doing.
Classical music is meant to teach a truth so great that it need not be heard actively in order to accomplish its work. If one attains the attitude to listen in the abstract to music, then one can be gifted with the contemplative mind and ardor to actually hear beyond the notes being heard. There is no other way to say it. This is enlightenment.
Listen, then, to this composer, as according to her prayers and dreams that your life will be bettered by the sound of music.
May you be gifted by the contemplative ardor of one whose life and hopes have been momentously influenced by the place of classical music to reach in and inspire a greater contemplation of God's purpose and plan.
For it is in classical music where the heavens open up and call forth the sublime messages of beauty and splendor in God's creation to be witnessed by one who listens with a heart filled with devotion and a love for harmony, for honey-sweet phrases and a structure woven with counterpoint; these all hone out a meaning in a way much like profound discourse. Its dignity will elicit and cultivate a readiness for good expectation in the listener such that the progression becomes dear and the suspension on a particular theme captivating.
Live for the message in music. Whatever love lives in your heart for the power of sound to stir new recognition of the place and purpose you may find in life and in your prayers for others; whatever memory you hold for a song that once touched your inmost love for self and for the way you found through that song and all the songs you sought for equal message thereafter -- bring all of that love to this offering which is for you and which was written for you from the heart of one who worships in music. May you find your inner peace. May you live in your inner peace. May you hear this music, for it is yours.
Composer,
Marilynn Stark