music heard so deep That it is not heard at all we are the music
I started listening toclassicfm.com back when I was at WZZM13.com in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
My work station was located under 4 TV sets and several police and fire department radios and the noise was noisy.
I had developed a high level of concentration over the years but this was something else.
I thought back to WUOM radio when classical music was played over the radio.
I thought back to my days in Ann Arbor when I could get CBC radio from Canada.
Then I realized, I had the internet.
I searched classical music online and came up with classicfm.com
It has been my friend ever since.
I have discovered that I can move from West Michigan to Atlanta and the sound track stayed the same.
I recently discovered that I can work from home and the sound track is still the same, though maybe a bit harder to hear, so I got myself a high tech headset.
It is odd because the sound from the music can so often hit a note or strike a chord, not on an instrument, but in me.
I have to stop and listen.
Do I notice because I am looking to be rescued somehow.
The music opens the door?
Or has the memory of the music left a door in my brain propped open somewhere?
Alice Walker wrote that she felt God kind of got pissed off if we walk by the color purple and don’t notice.
This morning, from a location in the heart of London, but in my ears, I listened to the Aria Da Capo from the Goldberg Variations by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) and it stopped my day.
I think God kind of gets pissed off if we hear this music and we don’t stop to listen.
I was not at my desk.
I was not in Atlanta.
But where was I?
Maybe Mr. TS Eliot is correct that when we hear music so deep inside us, we become the music.
Moment, the moment in and out of time, The distraction fit, lost in a shaft of sunlight,
In and out of time.
In and out of ourselves.
A break from this world.
A break to be somewhere else.
For a few minutes.
For most of us, there is only the unattended Moment, the moment in and out of time, The distraction fit, lost in a shaft of sunlight, The wild thyme unseen, or the winter lightning Or the waterfall, or music heard so deeply That it is not heard at all, but you are the music While the music lasts.
thinking abstractly of broadway boogie woogie musics’ pulse in life
How can you not enjoy the painting, Broadway Boogie Woogie?
You can see imagine the night lights of Broadway, the cars, the traffic, the sounds, the smells, the pulse.
The pulse of the boogie woogie music that flows through streets.
The pulse of the boogie woogie music that flows through people.
The pulse of the boogie woogie music that flows through all us.
So simple and some how so perfect.
Piet Mondrian wrote some where that he wanted to create ‘universal beauty’.
To express this, Mr. Mondrian eventually decided to limit his formal vocabulary.
Three primary colors; red, blue and yellow.
Three primary values; black, white and gray.
Two primary directions; horizontal and vertical.
I didn’t know Mr. Mondrian had all these rules.
I just enjoyed his work.
How does the abstract have rules?
Maybe sometimes its better not to know.
Better not to know all these answers.
Brave enough to come up with answers of your own.
Art and structure and rules.
I remember trying to understand something called the Ansel Adams Zone System.
It was a way to visualize photographs.
Blacks and whites where graded into zones that were numbered 1 to something on the x axis and a to something on the y axis.
Books were written on the subject.
But it never made sense to me.
Watching a documentary on Ansel Adams there was a scene of Mr. Adams and a bunch of students off in the woods.
They set up a photo and snapped a Polaroid as an establishing shot.
Something went wrong and when Mr. Adams pulled the Polaroid open, it was completely black.
Everyone laughed including Mr. Adams.
He held up the photo and said, “This is Zone1.”
BANG
In an instant, I understood.
It was black, no shades, no shadows.
It was Zone 1.
It wasn’t just black.
It was more than black.
And maybe a little less than black.
I had an Art Professor who lecture on local art and put up pictures of Calder’s le Grand Vitesse that stands in the center of Grand Rapids, Michigan.
It is also painted on all the cities’ garbage trucks.
This Professor asked all of us, what the sculpture meant.
I was so cool.
I HAD the answers.
Le Grand Vitesse meant, GREAT SWIFTNESS.
It was a representation of the water spilling over the rocks of a rapids.
The Professor nodded and the class kind of divided up with people who agreed with me and people who did not.
When he wrapped up the discussion, the Professor was asked, “WELL, who is right?”
The Professor turned to the class and with this wonderful smile/grin softly said, “I think it is what ever anyone wants it to be. That’s what makes it magic.”
Who needs answers to questions like these.
It has been a year since my nephew died.
My family gathered together online to be with my brother and his family.
Say neigh you neigh sayers but some how the power of family and extend love came through online.
It was a magic moment.
If there were 80 people together from my family, there were 80 different thoughts on what happened.
That is what made it a magic moment.
There was a pulse of the music of life.
We had a moment of silence.
My niece read something she wrote.
Then my brother talked to all of us.
He thanked us.
He thanked us, for all things, for letting them grieve.
For not trying to find answers.
For not trying to find explanations.
Sometimes its better to not have the answers.
Sometimes black can be black even when its not black.
want to be alone yet desperately lonely creating conflicts
It’s about identity and trying to survive and keep your identity.
So said Bob Seeger when he wrote, I Feel Like a Number.
I take my card and I stand in line To make a buck I work overtime “Dear Sir,” letters keep coming in the mail I work my back till it’s racked with pain The boss can’t even recall my name I show up late and I’m docked It never fails I feel like just another Spoke in a great big wheel Like a tiny blade of grass In a great big field
To workers, I’m just another drone To Ma Bell, I’m just another phone I’m just another statistic on a sheet To teachers, I’m just another child To IRS, I’m another file I’m just another consensus on the street Gonna cruise out of this city Head down to the sea Gonna shout out at the ocean “Hey, it’s me!”
Ann Arbor native, Bob Seeger was an important part of life for almost any high school kid growing up in Michigan in the 1970’s.
I mean, if Bob could make it big, who couldn’t?
He probably launched more dreams than NASA.
For myself, I always liked any one on the radio that I felt I could keep up with vocally.
Not that I ever tried to sing along with Bob.
Maybe scream along.
But sing?
As wikipedia says, “A roots rocker with a classic raspy, powerful voice, Seger wrote and recorded songs that deal with love, women, and blue-collar themes and is an example of a heartland rock artist.”
I will follow his advice and sometime soon I am gonna cruise out of this city.
No Haiku For You 