Nadia Idriss Mayen: Touching Music

We may not all speak the same language but we can all communicate through music. I am a lover of all types of music. I find that different genres play perfectly depending on the mood and situation.

You don’t have to be a musician to enjoy the sounds and rhythms of instruments or even vocals. All a person has to do is close their eyes and feel the music. It can take you to another place. Move and hum along to the tune.

Almost everywhere the sound of music can be heard. You can hear people hum, snap their fingers, clap, tap surfaces and if you are lucky play a note or two on an instrument.

When I was nine years old, I found a box of cassette tapes that belonged to my parents and played every single one after school. Being so young, I didn’t understand the meaning behind the lyrics but I enjoyed the sounds and beats to the songs. I started to tap and sing along reading out the lyrics written on the papers attached to the tape cover. I enjoyed it very much that my mother took me to watch a concert of young musicians. I watched closely with my eyes wide open with amazement and listened to the sounds and echoes of every instrument and vocals.

My mother then leaned closer and asked “What instrument you like the most?” I said, “The black one with the silver buttons on it, it almost sounds like a saxophone!” I left the concert and imagined playing almost every instrument on stage.

Then the following Christmas while everyone sat down to enjoy the stuffed roasted turkey, my siblings and mother sat around my chair and placed a box by my plate. I opened it thinking it was the pet turtle wrapped up in a box that I wrote to Santa for, but to find my very own shiny clarinet.

“The black one with the silver buttons!” I remember saying nodding with excitement.

Today, I’m surrounded by many shiny black objects with silver buttons but none can take me back to the time when I discovered how to communicate without speaking a single word, but by strumming a string of chords.

(Nadia Idriss Mayen, Executive Producer of Web TV at Al Arabiya English, can be reached at: [e-mail])