More Than Music: Sharing Sound, Shaping Souls
I’m switching things up a little this week—but if you’ve followed the blog, you know everything circles back eventually.
My older son and I are heading to a four-day music festival. Since he was 10, we’ve celebrated his birthday by going to concerts in May. This festival is new for us, but it gives me a chance to talk about something close to my heart: music.
Now yes, I’m a metalhead. But don’t worry—this post isn’t just about the genre. It’s about the power of music as a language, a memory keeper, and a tool for healing.
A Childhood Memory, A Seed Planted
I remember a school field trip in California. I ended up in the car with my crush and his mom, and she had the Beastie Boys blasting—No Sleep Till Brooklyn. I was young, impressionable, and thinking: this mom is really cool.
That memory stuck. Music has a way of doing that.
My family didn’t really listen to rock or metal. My dad dabbled in classic rock, but the genre really came alive for me through friendships. Over time, I fell in love with all kinds of music. It became my language. Music is poetry you can move to. It says what we often struggle to express. It reveals something raw inside of us.
Music as a Thread Through Life
In high school, I helped organize local shows. In college, my thesis film was a documentary on Baltimore musicians. I've been backstage at Ozzfest. I've met artists, attended countless concerts, and raised my kids on sound.
But one moment stands out.
In 2021, we were at a festival watching Sevendust. I've followed the band for over 20 years. They were meaningful to me—especially as a mixed woman at a time when Black musicians in metal were rare.
As my son stood watching them, he turned to me, eyes lit up, and said, “These guys are awesome. Why didn’t you tell me about them?”
In that moment, I realized something powerful: he was connecting with the same music I had found at his age. I didn’t push him into the music. He was discovering it on his own, through my love of it —but creating a relationship of his own.
This is the moment.
Sometimes we share our passions to express ourselves. But when someone we love finds joy in them too? That’s sacred.
When they reflect that passion back to us—when they truly see a part of us, we’ve shared—it’s humbling. It’s like hearing, “Thank you for letting me love a piece of you.”
Therapy, Frequencies, and Feeling Seen
My son struggles with social anxiety, but even his therapist shared that her partner — much like my son — comes alive in a concert setting. There’s something powerful about being in a crowd of strangers, united by the same lyrics, the same beat, the same emotional release. In that shared space, the masks drop. The heart opens. The anxiety quiets.
Lately, I’ve been diving deeper into how frequencies affect the body. Sound creates literal patterns—visible in cymatics, the study of sound wave interactions with matter. Frequencies can alter mood, regulate our nervous systems, and open portals to healing.
They aren’t just heard — they’re felt.
Science tells us that music activates multiple areas of the brain. Certain tones can actually lower stress, regulate the nervous system, or even help with focus and memory. Studies show that specific vibrations affect our cells, our energy centers, and our emotional state.
But beyond science, there’s ancient wisdom here too. Many indigenous and ancient cultures believed sound was sacred. Drumming rituals, chanting, singing bowls, and vibrational ceremonies were (and still are) used to connect with spirit, release trauma, and realign the body’s energy. Churches use hymns. Temples use bells.
This belief isn’t new — it’s just something modern medicine is finally beginning to understand. Music, at its core, is healing. It’s movement. It’s memory. It’s medicine.
But music is also expression. It’s not just something we receive — it’s something someone, somewhere, gave. Each lyric, each note, is a release of feeling, a fragment of someone’s story pressed into sound. I believe music feeds the soul because it comes from the soul — it is the soul’s offering to others.
When I connect with a song, it’s not just because it resonates with me — it’s because I can feel the emotion the artist was trying to organize. The joy, the ache, the chaos, the clarity. That offering, that vulnerability, becomes a bridge between two strangers. And sometimes, that bridge is the very thing that helps us heal.
If numbers are the universal language, then music is where math and meaning converge—rhythm speaking directly to the soul. It offers nourishment to even our darkest depths, in a beautiful, primal dance of connection.
Pebbling, ADHD, and Love Languages
In neurodivergent communities, there’s a term called “pebbling.”
It comes from the way penguins court one another by offering pebbles. In human relationships, pebbling is how we show love—sharing songs, memes, facts, or moments that made us think of someone.
I pebble with music. Constantly. Songs that move me. Make me laugh. Stir something deep. Or simply remind me of someone I love. Music is the medium I use to say things I can’t always articulate.
When I send a song, I’m not just sharing a link—I’m offering a frequency that touched something in me, lyrics that reached my soul, in hopes that it touches something in you too.
Passing Down the Playlist
Music isn’t just what we stream or save to playlists — it’s the lullabies we were rocked to sleep with, the hymns that echoed through our childhood churches, the jingles our grandparents hummed in the kitchen. It’s the silly little rhymes passed down through generations, echoing with nostalgia and love.
I still remember my dad singing Too-Ra-Loo-Ra-Loo-Ral or The Old Rugged Cross, and the playful nonsense of Mairzy Doats or A Bicycle Built for Two. They weren’t just songs — they were comfort. Connection. A thread tying me to something bigger than myself.
Cruising the California highways with my Mom, sunroof open, singing Sheryl Crow’s All I Wanna Do at the top of our lungs like a call to freedom. It may have only been a moment, but the music turned it into a memory.
Now, as a mom, I pass those songs on — but I’ve added my own. I make up ridiculous tunes for everything. Cleaning the house, brushing teeth, cooking dinner. We dance around the kitchen to songs with made-up lyrics and inside jokes. We laugh. We repeat them like rituals.
And while part of me wonders if my kids will remember these as quirky “mom moments,” my deepest hope is that these melodies stay with them — tucked into their memory like soft blankets. That someday, long after I’m gone, they’ll hear a tune or a phrase and smile, remembering the joy and love wrapped in every off-key note.
Because music isn't just passed down — it’s lived. In the quiet, in the chaos, in the laughter, in the legacy.
Why It All Matters
This blog post may seem like a detour—but it's not. It’s a loop. Because building life includes music. Includes memory. Includes connection. Includes the art of sharing pieces of ourselves and letting them echo through someone else.
Sometimes, the loudest breakthroughs come in the form of music. And if you’re lucky, they come while standing next to someone you love—singing, swaying, or screaming the lyrics to a song that says everything you’ve never known how to say.
And if you ever find yourself lost in a song, moved by a lyric, or standing in a crowd feeling the bass shake your bones — I hope you know, in that moment, you’re not alone.
We are frequency. We are rhythm. We are story. And music… well, music is the thread that ties it all together.
That’s its magic.
See you in the pit,
Lauren
P.S. If this post spoke to you, check out this week’s poem, “In the Key of You” It’s a love note to the moments, memories, and music we share—and how they shape the ones we love.
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