Music and Tarot

A burst of inspiration hit me while driving in the car this morning, so y’all will have to indulge me.

I feel myself to be a musical person, very in tune to how music changes emotions and reminds us of certain times in our lives. This morning I was listening to my own collection of music (on shuffle), and a song that has a jazz saxophone figuring prominently on it came on. It made me think of the lights of a large city at night.

Sometimes a song will get in my head and stay there during a reading. The only way it gets out of my head (and I can properly continue the reading) is by telling the client what I’m hearing. It usually does apply to the client.

There are some people in the tarot world that see a card and associate it with scent. The scent of the Star card will forever smell like star anise to me, due to a bath sachet I got from the Tarot Media Company. I am trying to cultivate a way of using a sense from a different angle to look at the cards.

Here are some musical tones I’ve heard in my head when thinking about certain cards:

• The Star: piccolo and what I like to call the “aurora borealis” sound heard in the song “The End of the Innocence” by Don Henley (seriously, if someone can go listen to that song and tell me what instrument makes that sound, it would be much appreciated!)
• The Chariot: a fast dreambeat
• The High Priestess: chimes and bells
• The Hierophant: organ music
• The Empress: folk music/acoustic guitar
• The Wheel of Fortune: merry-go-round music
• The Lovers: a couple’s “song”
• The Suit of Cups: piano music like the sound of drops of rain on a pond