Is music the closest I can get to being myself?

Seems like it. We all learn a lot from our surroundings, but those lessons are not all there is to us. I've gone through days when the facts suddenly become too much to handle. That important link between gathering facts and processing them seems to be some kind of bottleneck. That's when I need to shut out the physical world. I invariably resort to music, if not meditation. Sometimes both.

Now I'm trying to see if I'm just pleasing my auditory senses here, or does the relaxation happen because of some other factor. True, some good sounds that hold you in rapt attention can take your mind off the reality you just faced. So temporarily, your energies are devoted to something pleasant. Which means, there was something about the real world that made you tired, de-energized, and there's something about some well harmonized sounds, that
1) ease out your tiredness and relax those constricted muscles
2) make you hit the roof with excitement ( if the song's one of THOSE types)

The second part happens when there's visible gaining of energy ... somewhere some resource is being unleashed in your body and as you get absorbed in the rhythm, melody ( or whatever it is you look for in a song)... and as the intensity of the song picks up, you feel your energies returning full strength, and these keep increasing till the end of the song, leaving you on a high.

This intensity of the song, causes your own positive energies to come out and spread themselves on you. Leave the energy transactions for now. Let's look at the song. The song is a collaborative effort of a few people who got together and established contact with their inner energies and instincts and expressed whatever they felt then. It could've been their rational minds exploring a technique or a scale, or it could've been their feelings taking them up and down the scale. Either way, their rational mind or their emotions, contact with something inside has to be established before their skill can express it. Their skill can only express it.

So when I listen to bands that take off on lovely riffs or ones like Shakti, where each person is spontaneously exploring their domain within the framework of the song, I feel that my reaching a high has as much to do with seeing this contact they've established with their inner selves, as with appreciating their skillfulness.

I don't know yet, but on some level, my inner peace gets unleashed, the frown vanishes, the set jaw relaxes, the gaze softens...
If the song's the types the build up on intensity instead of just soothing its way till the end, then I can actually feel my toes and fingers bubbling with energy towards the end. After these visible energy changes, I feel like I just shrugged off those silly inane worries.
More importantly, when I get around to the keyboard to play, I can visibly feel this connection happening. When I listen to a classical piece, I can see the singer so much in contact with the feel of the raaga, and yet retaining judgement to express skill within it's framework. Maybe it's not just music. Maybe it's directly rejuvenating to see anyone establish a moment's connection. Music is more instantaneous to me because I posses some basic skill. But I'd be wrong if I tried to limit all my happy moments to music.

It may be a piece of art, it may be a deed of kindness, or it may be a program that worked after you spent all your energy on it trying to make it work, or just something you cooked that turned out well. It's all a matter of taking a step backwards for just a second, and savouring that moment. The very next moment, you're already smiling.

Music, art, work, anything... they're all reflective of human thinking, and human transcendance. It's the transcendance that moves you, reaches out to you. It's upto you to take a moment off to step aside and shake hands with it.