ALAAP

Just few days ago, while searching for a new name for my newly formed band, I thought of different words pertaining to music. Alaap was the first word that came to my mind. I didn't know the exact meaning of this word, but for some reason I knew this was the name I was looking for! I said why not dig deeper and find what exactly it means..

While googling it, I found a site that said 'Alaap' means 'Conversation of a musician with music' I loved the concept so much that I decided to give this a real deep thought..

With a mug of coffee I sat by the window, staring point blank and wondering how exactly could a musician converse with an abstraction called music? Could one actually do that? Was there some secret language? Could music possibly respond!!?? If it could how could it possibly be abstract!?

Music, as I always had understood, and felt (while playing my keyboards!) was this blissful thing that could get me out of the worst of my moods to make me perfectly cheerful and happy and the best part was I could rely on it at any time time of the day for that!! This called for a cognition! I needed to know how this happened! How music can actually 'talk me out' of my bad mood!!

Introspection and analysis told me that I always played 'pehla nasha' and I felt like I'm "newly in love". Also I felt kinda calm and happy-happy! While when I heard 'Nothing else matters', I felt nice but there was a slight melancholic touch to it The one thing, that I felt, was common to both these songs was that there was a slight touch innocence to them.

Now, the base of any song are the chords that make it 'voluminous' as I call it! The chord that is common to both these songs is 'C'. Besides that pehla nasha has extensive use of 'F' while nothing else matters has that of 'Em'. The feeling of innocence was common to both these songs.. So 'C' had to do something with it, I thought!! After some online research, I found a backing to the things I thought I was imagining!

Chord C signifies 'innocence', F signifies 'complacence and calm' while 'Em' signifies 'melancholy'.. There it was.. Quite clear now.. How one could talk to music and how music could talk back.. As I contemplated deeper, I realised, not only does music talk to us but it teaches us a small lesson..

Not one chord can make melody but a 'balanced and homogeneous mixture' of all chords makes music.. Analogous to this is the human mind.. Not one mood can result in peace but a 'balanced and homogeneous' mixture of all the moods makes it peaceful..

Music no longer remains abstract to me and Alaap, I say, is the key to a perpetual bliss now that I understand music in the true sense..