How music transcends the whole nine yards

The other day, a friend was talking about how she thinks mediocrity transcends language barriers as she recalls having watched an awful musical at Stadthalle. It was a version of the "Phantom of the Opera" in German, which extremely disappointed her and she felt like she was robbed of her EUR 60. Well, for one, Vienna is home to a number of opera houses so I can't blame her for the major letdown.

Anyway, moving on...I was wandering through a 3-meter long Bulletin Board in the university full of posts, from Spanish tutorials to flats for rent, when I came across a poster that caught my attention because of the line that says "Latin, African, Asian". Then I realized that it's a special event at a Sunday Church service. No biggie, I wrote down the details of the event on my calendar and went to their Sunday service.

Road to the Kephas Church...

There I realized how (gospel) music transcends language barriers. It's amusing and amazing at the same time. The worship team was a set of mostly LatAms and the praise and worship songs were all sung in Spanish. I recognized the melody of the first song to be that of "Take It All" by Hillsong. The other song was unfamiliar. But towards the end of the song, with the repeating lyrics "Con mi fe te exaltare, con mi amor te exaltare, con mi ser te exaltare", I found myself singing as well (of course they had the lyrics projected on the screen). The thing with Gospel songs, it’s easy to get a hold of the tune not only because they’re catchy, but also because of the fact that they keep singing the lyrics of a song, most often the chorus, over and over.

The song is actually "Me Viniste a Rescatar" (English title: Came to my Rescue) by Hillsong.

Talking about how music transcends language barriers, I remember being glued to that performance of Siyaya, an African street-performing group. Listening and watching them on YouTube while reminiscing that moment still gives me goose bumps every time. Imagine me standing on the streets of Cambridge with other engrossed tourists watching these guys perform real awesome music (in an African language). It’s a totally different experience to actually see them perform live! Their music exudes free spirit and vivacity. They are phenomenal, I must say.

Here's a Youtube clip of the group performing at the exact same spot where we saw them last year in Cambridge. This was in 2010.

Music transcends anxiety. I remember back in college, it was my final exam in swimming and it was my first class that day. I was sooooo nervous (you can’t imagine how nervous!!) about the treading part of the exam because I wasn’t able to do it properly during our final practice, so much so that if that was the actual exam, I would have failed. So what I did was I set my mp3 player on loop, playing “Meet With Me”, a gospel song, from when I left my dorm until before I plunged into the pool for the “final judgement”. And I guess the music was a hell lotta help because I passed!

Most of the time, music transcends my indolence. Music is often the key to perk me up, to motivate and to inspire me. It’s my energy bar. Whenever I feel like couch potato-ing (for the second day in a row) at home, I know it’s time to play my perky playlist to get me moving. Even if it’s just tidying my room as long as I’m being productive. Don’t get me wrong, I love couch potato-ing! Who doesn’t?!? It’s heaven! But if I know that I’ve been doing it long enough that I can already feel it’s getting harder to get up on an heavy ass (literally), then that’s already dreadful

Music transcends many other things – fear, conflict, and barriers, be it age, sex, culture or language. And music influences people either negatively or positively. But I’d like to believe that it’s positive for most people, just as how music influences my way of life – living life to the fullest.