Music is spirit.

When I play, I can feel personalities in the music - not quite literal personalities, as in people, but the Affect of personality.
I can feel, when I play, other worlds opening up, and a thinning of the proverbial (or perhaps literal) veil between planes of existence.

Many musicians love all types of music. I do not. Some music, just like some people, have personalities that clash with mine. All music opens my spirit to what is inside the music, and if what is in the music clashes with my own energy, the act drains my energy just as if I had been in conversation with a disagreeable person. That's not really unheard of. All musicians have likes and dislikes, some are more subtle while some only draw the line at extremes.

When music speaks to me, I inhabit it. As I play Albeniz, Bach, or O'Carolan, for the duration of the piece, it creates a world in which I live a life apart from this one. When the song ends, there is a holy moment in which I pass from that life and return to myself. Because we have no better word, this life within a life is called, "Performing." I have brushed God, gods, spirits, ancestors -- but the most meaning comes from when other people watch, connect, and have aesthetic experiences of their own. This is such a deep and meaningful thing that happens, I sometimes experience it on my own, but more often it's the exchange of energy between listener and performer that creates it. I've been on the listening end, as well - it's more rare, but it happens. One thing that is required for any case is a personal connection with the music, itself. I don't experience it with any kind of radio-pop music. I have occasionally felt it in music for worship (i.e. church music), but mostly in attending solo or small ensem
ble performances by masters, or orchestras, during musical theatre.

This must be why artistic integrity is so very important to me. I would rather play a song in front of four people and experience the joy and meaning of being in communion with the universe than play a vacuous pop song for ten thousand teenagers.

Now, sometimes, music is just good fun. It doesn't open deep pathways to an inner universe, it's just joy. Integrity doesn't mean a song can't be fun. It still has a spiritual connection.

I do not love making every kind of music. Music has personality-like energy to me, and I have a need for that energy to harmonise with my own on a deep level -- that can mean it's a form of communion with the divine, or it can just be a fun, joyful experience to play. It's only after that is satisfied that the audience matters to me, but then the audience does matter a lot. I did not become a Classical guitarist because I wanted to maximise my audience, but because that it the music that speaks loudest to my soul.

I do, however, love making music with other people - especially my wife. And in those situations, I will inevitably be called upon to play not-the-most personally spiritually-fulfilling songs. However, the cooperative experience of making melody and harmony with others is itself deeply satisfying, so much so that I've even played patriotic music on occasion and had a pretty good time.

I believe I have experienced gateways to other kinds of existence, opened by music. It's not the "Secret chord that David played and pleased the Lord." Or maybe it is - by the chord is created by the harmony of love for the music, the intentional opening of the spirit, and the connection with others (spirits and mortals) in a sacred aesthetic experience - the ultimate consonant triad.