Playing my flute…
I love music. In the movie, The Witches of Eastwick, the character Darryl Van Horne observes that without precision passion is chaos, without passion precision is prissy. I have the book but have not read it. Mea culpa. I like the quote. Music is what happens with passion weds itself with precision. I am not convinced that this is mere technique: precision of thought, of vision, clarity in listening to the heart’s murmurings. That is how I understand the precision in music. Technique is vital, to be certain, but there is something more that requires precision. Not a note wasted, either my commission or omission.
There is another quote about music that speaks to me: I love music for what it makes me remember and for what it makes me forget.
There is much to remember. I have almost no memory of my childhood. It is as of those years did not exist. I hear stories and they seem to resonate in an empty room. No sympathetic vibrations, no harmonics, no recall: it is as if there is silence where there should be a song. When I feel what I can of my childhood I hear minors and dissonant chords with throbbing bass and tense crescendos that cry for resolution. But then there is a chord, a note, a phrase that falls from the sound of the birds or a child’s laughter, or something that brings the phrase to resolution.
But there is still some small syncopation
I am not a wind player… I just like the flute. I went into my bathroom – all that resonance – and played there. For a moment I could see to a different place, full of beautiful sounds that speak more eloquently than words of the heart’s true longings…
Ah, but I am just a fool…
