“Music is the universal language of mankind”. - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and everything”. - Plato

“Music cleanses the understanding: inspires it, and lifts it into a realm it would not reach if it were left to itself”. - Henry Ward Beecher.

I have always considered the Visual and Performing Arts a global language and certainly with today’s digital technology this globalization is beginning to occur. Music in particular works its magic because it can be of value on the radio next to a sick bed, or heard with great fanfare at an elegant live concert in an opera house.

Lately, Mozart was being heard and an opera event watched in a sports arena. We only need such artistic opportunity to hit the ears of that one special child to change a life, or even a generation…i.e. the Beatles or Lady Gaga. Music is vital to our hearts, our minds, our souls and shares religious company in cultures everywhere.

“A song will outlive all sermons in memory”. - Henry Giles

“Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life”. - Ludwig Van Beethoven

“Music should strike the fire from the heart of a man, and bring tears from the eyes of a woman”. - Ludwig Van Beethoven

Emotional in its nature, and often stemming from an overwhelming emotional response to tragedy, the creation of music unfolds unconsciously and easily. I dare any composer to work under pressure to create, and I believe most would agree they must harbor a particular relaxed state of mind. Studies in creativity are showing that often these “Creatives” (new term soon to be recognized as a category of worker) are very diligent in setting up their environment to be as productive as possible.

Drugs were once thought to enhance creativity, but after enough flower children overdosed and died, this trend died out also.

“Without music, life would be an error”. - Nietzche

“Music is an outburst of the soul”. - Frederick Delius

“Music is what feelings sound like”. - Anonymous

Say what you will, my personal experience as a songwriter began while I was living in a Lord’s Manor house in Montreal. I would wake up in the middle of the night with songs and words, which I would immediately get up and write down, much to the consternation of my three girl room-mates at the time. No one can tell me they were not divinely inspired, I did not say produced,…as the house was run by nuns for young women living in the city away from their families. I was studying ballet at the time and used the over-sized piano on the first floor for my music practice.

Music holds up its head as the leader of the most intimate and most global form of communication ever created by man, or who else?