digiZoid ZO Contest: "What does music mean to you?"

To me music is one of the ultimate forms of expression. It's not just limited to just one form of emotion. It is the ultimate personification of the human spirit. Music can lift your spirits when you are down; it can even bring you down depending on the genre and style. For me music is an outlet, and a stress reliever. It brings me joy and happiness. I think that is the whole ideal of music; to bring happiness and joy to the listeners. To bring understanding and meaning if you will. The fact that music is so versatile and open, forever changing. It spans across all cultures and has its own characteristics based and shaped by its inherent regions.

Music, IMO is the best, universal and ORIGINAL way of communication and can communicate emotions and feelings unlike anything mere words can communicate.

I like to think of individual tracks as paths - the more I listen to a song, the more often I have traveled that path. When I put on my headphones and listen to a song on the bus, when I relax at home listening to a song through speakers, I'm going down that virtual path. Every beat, every sound, is another detail on the path. When I am feeling down, or just feel like visiting an old friend, it is nice to be able to go on a path I know, to travel something I know by heart. Just close my eyes and listen to the music. Know what images the beats will give you in your mind. Know which side the sounds will come from. The guitar on the right. The singer a little to the left. Know the lyrics that will be sung. The more often I listen to a song the more familiar I am with everything on the path. They really do become old friends. I don't think a path can be ever over-traversed. You can always take the same path with a slightly different take (different equipment) and it will become "new" again. 

What music means to me is that it can be my own private world. Each genre can be a door containing worlds that in our own way makes up our personality, our mind, our wishes. Music can draw people close and envelop us to feel free, not worrying about the past or future and instead just focus on that one single moment in our life when we just listen. It reminds me when I went to the Mikunopolis concert at Anime Expo 2011. I knew Hatsune Miku is a hologram but when she started singing I forgot everything. I was just there listening and moving to the music that in my heart made believe she and her vocaloid friends were real. Just for that moment I felt peace in my own little world. That's what music means to me.

Is there anywhere to purchase the ZO, I was wanting to buy one the other day and your website said that all vendors were out of stock? Ebay also returned nothing 

What music means to me?

Music is my escape, music is my reality, music is what keeps me up at night and what sends me to sleep.

Music is gift or force that has the power to move the physical body in sequence to the source of sound, and stop time from distractions for a brief moment to allow ourselves to be free and discover the sacred inner space of mind and spirit.   As it travels through space and time, it orchestrates the equilibrium of all the earthly good and bad within its process, creates a masterpiece of moving harmonics to be remembered, cherished, and shared. 

The eyes have Monet, Van Gogh, Raphael, Wright, Da Vinci, and Michelangelo, but the ears have much more instruments of expression beside bristles.   Distinct sounds from strings, wind, brass, percussion, and voice molded into historical creations by baton or hand can help make the daily grind and at times during life’s unfair events a bit more bearable and livable. 

Caught in-between the notes and lyrics lies the subjective meaning of music and from it, music to my ears give me back the sense of self-awareness during times I felt I had no control or direction with the generalities of life and the deep holes it can create when I’m so caught up in everything but my true self.  Music, in all its glory gives me back lost time for me, myself, and I. 

Music is one's emotions captured in words and notes, it express one's passion. 

sorry about this being short, but thats the best I got 

Music for me is a place I can go whenever I am listening to it. It somehow helps me to consentrate and find the "inner peace" in me. It was the thing that took me through the studies on grades 5-9. If I wasn't listening to music I didn't feel like studying. Now when I started high school I can't imagine being without music. Once my IEMs got destroyed (heavy books+ 3 meter fall+ IEMs=NEW GEAR :D) and since I got no other headphone to listen at the moment I just had to go to store to buy new pair just so I could listen some more music. It is the lyrics of the music I hear (or in classical music the tempo) which affects me the most. When I'm angry I don't feel liek listening to classical but when I'm happy I prefer listening songs which aren't sad or in allegro.

Hope I win this, I really really want ZO!!!!!

A beautiful score is an unstoppable force, causing me to miss dialogue and rewind the most captivating of films.  Music makes me stop work in its tracks, sit back, close my eyes, and get goosebumps and a ****-eating grin in an overload of awe.  It lets my spirits soar when I'm down.  It is evocative of past friendships, and past loves.

Music is an ineffable quality of life.  A revelation of the human condition.  It expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent.

Withdrawn:

I just love to listen to music, no philosophical nonsense. 

To me music is what helped bring me and one of my best friends Joe together. We would simply sit and enjoy music. We loved making it together, there were times after a 20 minute jam session we would simply look at each other and smile. He truly felt music like I do, he knows what it's like to ride on the waves of a long note Pink Floyd bend, he knew what it was like to create. Music brought us together whether we were making it or listening. He passed away 1 month ago after a car crash at the age of 19. It really tore me up and it doesn't feel real yet, I still hear the sweet music in a hot room where our sweat would pour onto our instruments. Music for me is about bringing people together and creating lasting memories.

What does music mean to me?

To me music has no meaning.

It is simply a collection of words and sounds that come together in a harmonious way. These elements of music, regardless of how the instruments may sound or the dictionary definition of the words that comprise the lyrics, are in an of themselves meaningless. A singer wailing on heart-brokenly about a lost lover has a meaning only to the pair of lovers it describes. For you, the listener, that personally knows neither the singer nor his lover there is no true meaning to the song. The lyrics are simply words and the instruments nothing but the origin of sounds. 

The meaning we derive from the songs we hear comes not from the musics itself that is being played, but the application of our lives to what we are hearing. We hear a song and within us there is some common theme to human existence that resonates globally. The topics of lovers lost or wealth or happiness are constant among humanity despite the outward differences we like to focus on. We all experience these same themes to our lives and because of this can apply our own experiences to music and songs. The song about a lost lover makes you sad because it is resurrecting your own previous heartaches. We apply our history to the music we hear to give it a purpose and a meaning for us. This meaning however, is totally personal and depend upon your own life events. No one else will have Eric Clapton's Layla and yet we all have a Layla. Maybe her name isn't Layla, it could be Sarah or Peggy or Anna. Maybe it isn't a her at all, maybe your Layla is Gary or Jim or Tom. The point is we all have our Layla whoever that may be.

So when reflecting back upon the meaning of music it is still my stance that it has no meaning. It is a clear surface to project our lives upon. Our experiences give music a purpose and a meaning. No song means the same thing to everybody but every song means something to someone.

For me music is the language of emotions