Music to my ears
I once heard the phrase “in history every crescendo is followed by a diminuendo”. Time is the weaver of the pattern of this impromptu composition called life. Great moments are often too brief, and the magnitude of their greatness is only realized when the moment has passed and the volume is lessened, leaving listeners with a strange echoing silence.
If a musician were to wow an audience and establish a standing ovation, or even as much as inspire the desire of an encore, they need to understand the relationship between the highs and the lows. It was during the Easter homily at my parish when my Pastor explained that everyone needs to be able to take the good with the bad in a fair balance, so that if life were to take a wrong turn and the chords change from major to minor, we can still last through it and await the return to a more bearable dynamic.
Waiting is the challenge. It would be easy if we could just speed up that metronome and plow through to a more pleasing medley. Maybe we have become too impatient of a society, in that we are often furiously changing the channels of our radios to find that song that fits us best without listening to what is already playing. If we sit through the song, we may come to find that those deep down rhapsodies that cut straight to the heart and leave us open and exposed in turn will allow us to become more deeply touched by the serenades and the lighthearted sonatas that come around in the next section of the score. To appreciate one, we cannot cover our ears to the other, or else we are living in ignorance. The true musician and the avid listener respects all.
It lies in the favor of choice that we can decide which we prefer to surround ourselves with. Whether it be the rumba, sarabande, polka, mazurka, polonaise, scat, jazz, punk, house and beyond, no two songs are exactly alike. Through the ages our preludes and overtures have shortened to almost non-existence so that there is limited preview as to what we can expect these days. Synthesizers and other electronic equipment has made everything possible. And we all know that we don’t dance to the same beats our parents danced to.
It is in the refrain of songs and the repetition of the chorus where we can learn the melody and even sing along. And of course, though we cannot always prepare ourselves for the random staccatos or the pauses, we just need to accept that whether the scales are ascending or descending they are part of a greater purpose and that the entire recital can be as beautiful as we allow ourselves to let it be. Thus when the crescendo is gone and the diminuendo begins, it is in the fall that we can pick up and rise again.
If a musician were to wow an audience and establish a standing ovation, or even as much as inspire the desire of an encore, they need to understand the relationship between the highs and the lows. It was during the Easter homily at my parish when my Pastor explained that everyone needs to be able to take the good with the bad in a fair balance, so that if life were to take a wrong turn and the chords change from major to minor, we can still last through it and await the return to a more bearable dynamic.
Waiting is the challenge. It would be easy if we could just speed up that metronome and plow through to a more pleasing medley. Maybe we have become too impatient of a society, in that we are often furiously changing the channels of our radios to find that song that fits us best without listening to what is already playing. If we sit through the song, we may come to find that those deep down rhapsodies that cut straight to the heart and leave us open and exposed in turn will allow us to become more deeply touched by the serenades and the lighthearted sonatas that come around in the next section of the score. To appreciate one, we cannot cover our ears to the other, or else we are living in ignorance. The true musician and the avid listener respects all.
It lies in the favor of choice that we can decide which we prefer to surround ourselves with. Whether it be the rumba, sarabande, polka, mazurka, polonaise, scat, jazz, punk, house and beyond, no two songs are exactly alike. Through the ages our preludes and overtures have shortened to almost non-existence so that there is limited preview as to what we can expect these days. Synthesizers and other electronic equipment has made everything possible. And we all know that we don’t dance to the same beats our parents danced to.
It is in the refrain of songs and the repetition of the chorus where we can learn the melody and even sing along. And of course, though we cannot always prepare ourselves for the random staccatos or the pauses, we just need to accept that whether the scales are ascending or descending they are part of a greater purpose and that the entire recital can be as beautiful as we allow ourselves to let it be. Thus when the crescendo is gone and the diminuendo begins, it is in the fall that we can pick up and rise again.
posted by Nateration @ 2:33 PM
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