Music is uplifting when one can connect to it. Whether it is a sad song or a happy one, when there is a connection the experience is uplifting, because one feels not alone. If one can actually hear what the musician is trying to get across and can understand where they are coming from and what they must have felt, the music has been listened to, it has surely been heard. The listener has experienced a part of the musician's life, and that music has bonded them together. "I seemed to hear with what burning he had made it his, and what burning we had yet to make it ours, how we could cease lamenting. Freedom lurked around us and I understood, at last, that he could help us to be free if we would listen"(From "Sonny's Blues" by James Baldwin, p63). The musician plays the part of a preacher, a priest, a minister, et cetera. From their own suffering and their own way of dealing with that suffering they can help others to not suffer so much. The musician can set people free, the musician can hold people up to the sky, allow them to see the truth and glory that this world possess. The musician is much like a god, in that they have the ability to reach countless numbers of people and show them a better life, a cleaner world, a more truthful world, a world with less pain. The musician can free people, the musician can heal people, and the musician can make people feel things they never thought possible. .
The voice is a catharsis, as is the song. People tend to forget this a lot, and count on the societal rule that the only way to cleanse one's self is through a written religion, the act of praying to a distinct god, asking for forgiveness and purity of soul. Songs may not offer these things, but they sure can offer the chance to really get involved within one's own soul and heart, and learn the deeper meaning of what lurks within these words. A song offers one a voice in which can be filled with every ounce of sadness that has ever inflicted the heart, with every teardrop that has moistened the cheek, and with every stab that has taken away breath.
