El Poder de la Música!

As someone who has studied music quite extensively over the years, I have always known that music holds an overwhelming power to convey emotion. For me, nothing helps me to express emotions the way whipping out my violin does. If I'm sad, Rachmaninoff's Vocalise usually does the trick. If I'm happy, I usually reach for a good helping of Mozart Symphony 39 or Vivaldi's Summer. If I am feeling twitterpated, it's all about Tchaicovsky and his Swan Lake, or Beethoven's Sonata 8. Pachelbel's Canon in D is able to sooth my nerves. I have plenty of other songs to play to help evoke such emotions, but I had to name some that people who don't play would be familiar with. If you don't know any of those songs, look them up, they are all fabulous. Very diffrerent from one another, but fabulously written. Nothing can get me excited the way a great ensemble playing a beautiful piece of music does. It does not matter what is going on, if I hear this (more specifically, a string orchestra, I'm not much a fan of the brass family), I cannot help but stop and listen.
If you get a chance to watch live music from a good violinist, please take the chance. A good violinist moves while playing. He will have his body help act as an advocate for the music. I also would advise you to watch his face as he plays. You will love it.
I have been listening to my classical playlist all night, and it is stimulating me to reminisce on my times back when I was playing my violin about 4-6 hours a day. Back when I had the motivation of my ensembles I was in, performances, competitions, and my personal need to feed my competition with myself to be the best violinist I possibly could be, I could not get enough of it. Now, I am lucky if i play five hours in a week. I have lost a lot of my skills from my monumental decline in practicing and playing time I have given myself since starting college, and it makes me want to cry.
I am not nearly the violinist I was four or five years ago. It really is true when they say that if you do not practice your gifts, you will lose them. This makes me think of the parable of the talents, found in Matthew 25, verses 14-28. It just basically discusses how a man gave his servants money (talents), and two of them chose to use their talents to gain more, while the one hid his away from the world in fear of losing it. In the end, we learn, that the man who hid his away, lost his talent, while the men who used their talents and performed, they gained more and more talents and abilities. I am seeing me let myself become the made who hid his talent from the world, and eventually lost it. I do not want this to be a trend, so I set a goal earlier this week to play more. I realized that part of my lack in motivation came from playing alone, so I tried out for the violinist part for the Orem Institute of Religion's Christmas concert, and I got the part. This is thrilling! It has been ages since I have played with fellow musicians. While I am scared and nervous, I know that I really have nothing to worry about. Nobody will make fun of me, and I know that by actively playing again, I will start to become that strong player I was in middle school and high school while attending the arts schools.
I am very excited that I have this opportunity, and I just wanted share a brief feeling I just had that kind of ties all of this up. The poser of music is incredible, and for those who are blessed with talents to play, do, or else yu will lose your talents.