Staying up and being out late wasn’t so bad. In the throes of an especially gnarly period, performing after my bedtime was no big deal. In fact, I felt better immediately afterwards and - four days later - am still riding a nice wave of physical and emotional betterment. Going out and doing what you love - your life’s work / raison d'être / ikigai - is a magical potion. It’s a lifegiving serum of which, I believe, everyone deserves a taste. The trick is, you’ve got to manufacture it yourself.
Not a lot of music gives me chills, but when it does, those chills are experienced by an unexpected part of my body: my thighs. It seems the tops of my thighs, and only my thighs, are where I experience music in a more palpably physical way. Not my arms, or neck, or scalp, or anywhere else. This response isn’t unusual but also isn't universal. I suppose it makes sense that I, a person who expresses many of my musical urges by utilizing my thigh muscles to control pedals with my lower legs and feet, would experience thigh chills. Still, it feels kinda weird every time it happens.
The researchers found that the brains of individuals who occasionally feel a chill while listening to music were wired differently than the control subjects. They had more nerve fibers connecting auditory cortex, the part of the brain that processes sound, to their anterior insular cortex, a region involved in processing feelings.
Makes sense for a musician, right? I didn't always get them, though - not until more recently. The chills only come at especially satisfying emotional climaxes in music that I love. Notably, they can happen even if I’m hearing a great song for the first time. But they occur without fail when I listen to the peak moments in my favourite songs, especially when beloved vocalists switch from a lower register to an octave above, belting out the same melody in barely-contained, emotionally volatile way. Midway through this song (2:30 minute mark on) is a perfect example of one such moment:
So far, I have been brought to tears twice today. The first was by the finale of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. When Midge, set to be relegated to a lowly wooden stool and superficial “lady talk” on the popular Gordon Ford Show, glanced at the Shure 55S microphone and decidedly inwardly to perform a set against the mainstream misogynistic host’s wishes, I lost it. I didn’t just watch it; I experienced the moment. Maisel probably does a lot of things wrong, but what it does right for me is articulate, capture, and replicate the precise feelings of being a talented, privileged, rebellious and ambitious yet chronically overlooked stage performer. I’m such a sucker for stories about empowered womenfolk willing to rage against the pop culture status quo and make themselves household names.
Also, I own a newer version of the microphone. I’ve sung into it at countless shows and on many of my most cherished recordings. It’s a magical piece of technology. It amplifies the unseen and previously unsaid, and it looks might fine doing it!
The second time I spewed forth clear liquid from my eyes today was when I chatted with my son in our car. I turned to face him in the back seat (don’t worry - we were parked) and heard a snap as my favourite - my only - pair of sunglasses broke. Right in the middle of one vintage plastic arm. I’d found these decades-old beauties at a thrift store last summer and have cherished every moment in them. They feel - as much as any inanimate object you wear on your face is able to do - like home. I’ve Gorilla-glued the arm but am also resigned to the fact that my new/old/only favourite glasses are now kaput.
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