A Musical Effect

The author striking a pose on one of
WestJet Encore’s Bombardier Q400 Twin Prop Aircraft

Photo cred’s: A fellow colleague

“If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music.”

– Albert Einstein

I have noticed the effect that music has on our conscious being. It plays such a powerful and pervasive role on every part of our being. As I write this section, I’m sitting on a lounge chair by the pool at the Rimrock Hotel. Guess what’s playing in the background? Music. It’s background music that is designed to help set, shape, and create the mood of the atmosphere for each guest to enjoy during their stay and time here. The tone that this instrumental music creates is one that is peaceful, relaxing, soothing, inviting, one of calmness and stillness; yet, marked to allow each person to escape and enter in to their own personal space, whatever that may be or looks like for them.

Situated high up in the Canadian Rockies, this getaway experience for me also amplifies the experience of being surrounded by one of Mother Nature’s most prized and exalted creation’s: a series of unending mountains. They seem to stretch from one tip to the next in a continual fashion. By music, we enter a place of tranquility where the garments of the eternal can seem to be touched and embraced upon, even if only for a short period of time. See, I have already entered into a favourable and desirable mood for writing, one that is primarily set by the music playing around me. Music is pervasive and, more so, it is effective. Highly effective. It is so because it reaches deep into a person’s internal realm and takes them to a place that is far too less visited, yet that is most meaningful and wanted; needed.

I find it quite interesting how Einstein once said that if he wasn’t a scientist, he would be a musician. Just think about that statement for a second, coming from someone like him. He is internationally regarded as one of the smartest people to have ever walked the planet, in the last 150 year’s or so, and perhaps even farther back. His brain and his extraordinary high-level of intelligence has allowed him, of all people, to say that for his choice of profession, employment, enjoyment, and ultimately – his source of provision, were it not for being a scientist, he would’ve chosen to have been a musician. This is a remarkable statement and one that is very revealing.