When I Stopped Listening to Music and Started Feeling It

Music has become far more than something I simply listen to. From Nessi Gomes in Portsmouth Cathedral and Medicine Festival, to intimate sound baths, ceremonial cacao and learning instruments myself, I have begun to experience music through emotion, vibration and resonance. This blog explores how sound now connects me to myself, to others and to the natural world, and why I believe it can deeply nourish body, mind and spirit.

CONNECTIONMUSICCREATION

Nigel Kilford

9/4/20265 min read

When I Stopped Listening to Music and Started Feeling It

Last night I sat inside Portsmouth Cathedral listening to Nessi Gomes perform to an audience of perhaps 150 or 160 people. It was intimate, quiet and absolutely exquisite. Her voice, the instruments and the natural acoustics of the cathedral came together in a way that is difficult to properly describe. It was probably one of the most sublime musical performances I have ever had the honour of attending.

There are artists whose technical ability you admire, but occasionally you experience someone where the technical ability almost becomes secondary. You stop analysing how beautifully they are singing or how precisely they are playing. You simply feel it. That was what happened last night. Nessi's voice seemed to move through the cathedral rather than simply fill it, and every note, vibration and moment of silence seemed to have its own place within the building.

It also made me realise again just how much my relationship with music has changed.

Portsmouth Cathedral itself added another layer to the evening. Its history stretches back more than 800 years, beginning around 1180 when land was given for the building of a chapel dedicated to Thomas Becket. That small medieval church grew alongside Portsmouth, becoming a parish church around 1320 and eventually the cathedral in 1927. Over the centuries it has witnessed war, peace, destruction and rebuilding, while developing deep connections with Portsmouth’s naval and seafaring history. Known today as the Cathedral of the Sea, the building carries centuries of human stories within its walls, which made experiencing music there feel even more significant.

From Listening to Feeling

Only three weeks earlier I had been standing amongst thousands of people at Medicine Festival watching Nessi Gomes perform again. The contrast could hardly have been greater. One performance beneath an open sky surrounded by thousands of people, the other within the ancient stone walls of a cathedral in front of a small audience. Yet both created the same thing for me: connection.

Medicine also introduced me to extraordinary performances from Malte Marten, Mose, Deya Dova, Poranguí, Dipod and many others. Over the past few years I have also been fortunate enough to see artists including YAIMA, Stephen Wilson Jr., Sturgill Simpson, Cody Pennington and Xavier Rudd. They are incredibly different musicians, but there is something I recognise within all of them: devotion to what they create.

There was a time when I simply listened to songs. I liked the melody, the lyrics, the guitar or the voice. Music accompanied driving, working or life in general. I still enjoy music in that way, but somewhere along the way something changed.

Now I feel it.

A voice can affect me before I have even consciously understood the words. A lyric can suddenly reach somewhere within me that I did not realise needed reaching. Sometimes it is not the words at all. It can be a drum, a harmonic, a string vibrating, a breath between lyrics or simply the silence before the next note.

Music can evoke joy, sadness, peace, longing, gratitude or memories that seemed to have disappeared years ago. Sometimes it creates an emotion I cannot even name. I used to think that everything needed to be understood. I increasingly believe that some experiences are simply meant to be felt.

Sound Beyond Music

Recently I experienced this from another direction when I attended a sound bath followed by ceremonial cacao around a fire for the full moon.

Inside the bell tent, the sound was centred mainly around gongs, with other instruments gradually introduced throughout the session, including a quartz pyramid, sound bowls and Koshi chimes, alongside soft music. Outside the tent, birdsong naturally found its way into everything that was happening. Nothing needed to be added to it. The combination of the instruments, the surrounding nature and then sitting around the fire afterwards made for an almost perfect evening.

Experiences like that are continuing to reinforce something I have come to believe personally: frequency, vibration and resonance can have a deeply healing effect on the body, mind and spirit. I am not trying to make a scientific claim about what somebody else should experience. I simply know what happens within me when I allow myself to become still and completely immersed in sound.

Music is not something we experience only through our ears. Stand beside a large drum or gong and you feel it through your body. Bass moves through the floor and into your chest. Rhythm changes your breathing and sometimes even how your body wants to move. Certain sounds seem capable of quietening the constant noise of thought for a while.

That has become increasingly important to me.

Learning to Create It

Perhaps this is also why I have become so fascinated with learning instruments myself.

I have many drums, Koshi chimes, didgeridoos, around half a dozen harmonicas, Dan Moi, tambourines, cultural rattles and numerous other instruments that I am gradually exploring. Some I can play reasonably well. Others remind me very quickly how much I still have to learn.

But I love the process.

There is something incredibly grounding about creating sound yourself. Even something as simple as striking a drum changes depending on where your hand lands, the force you use and the shape of your hand. Add another person and another rhythm and suddenly something exists that neither of you could have created alone.

That, for me, is one of the most beautiful things about music. It connects people without requiring explanation.

When I watch musicians such as Nessi Gomes or Xavier Rudd, or experience the extraordinary performers I encountered at Medicine, I am reminded of the enormous difference between owning an instrument and mastering one. But rather than discouraging me, it inspires me.

I do not need to become them. I only need to keep learning.

If one day I can reach even a fraction of their ability, perhaps I can give a little of what these artists have given me. Maybe somebody will sit and listen while I play a drum, harmonica, didgeridoo or some combination of the instruments I am slowly learning. Perhaps something I create will make them close their eyes, breathe a little differently or simply feel something for a moment.

What an incredible gift that would be.

Something in Me Has Changed

Music has always been part of my life, but only relatively recently have I understood how powerful it can feel.

Maybe the music has changed, but I suspect I have changed too.

Perhaps I am more open to it now. More willing to feel things rather than suppress or analyse them. More comfortable allowing beauty and sadness to exist together. More willing to sit quietly with an experience without needing to understand exactly why it affects me.

Years ago I might have walked out of Portsmouth Cathedral saying that Nessi Gomes had an incredible voice and that it had been a brilliant concert. Both statements would have been completely true.

But neither would come close to describing what I experienced.

Because somewhere along the way I stopped simply listening to music.

Now I feel it.

The voices, the words, the instruments, the rhythm, the silence and the vibration.

And for a few extraordinary moments, I do not feel like somebody listening to music at all.

I feel part of it.