When all the strings of my life will be tuned,
then at every touch of Yours will come out
the music of love.
Tagore
"Is there enough Silence for the Word to be heard?"
The music of our hearts and souls reflects our inner being -- for are we not the singer, the singing, and the song of our lives? In the silence, we can listen to our unique melody -- the words and thones that arise, the harmonies and discords. Perhaps we are ready to sing a new song. Perhaps we dance to the rhythm of our heart with delight. Note: the silences within our life's symphony make all the differences!
I'm coming to believe in the importance of silence in music. The power of silence after a phrase of music, for example: the dramatic silence after the first four notes of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, or the space between the notes of a Miles Davis solo. There is something very specific about a "rest" in music. You take your foot off the pedal and pay attention. I'm wondering as musicians whether the most important thing we do is merely to provide a frame for silence. I'm wondering if silence itself is perhaps the mystery at the heart of music. And is silence the most perfect form of music of all? Songwriting is the only form of meditation I know. And it is only in silence that the gifts of melody and metaphor are offered.
I sit for a long time in the absolute silence. All at once, there is barely a perceptible noise, a soft rumble as of thunder. The sound dies without discovery of its nature or source. It returns, seeming to come from all directions at once. At last it emerges from its mystery, grows into a tremulous hum, and solidifies into chanting. The music has no tempo. There is no breathing audible in it. No one voice stands out; it is the fusion of all that produces the effect. Long held notes which at last modulate again and again in the calm rhythm of the heart. I am suspended in the sound. And charged. ... The chanting dies away as gently as it began. Once again there is the unanimous voice of silence.
Music is pleasing not only because of the sound but because of the silence that is in it: without the alternation of sound and silence, there would be no rhythm. If we strive to be happy by filling the silence of life with sound, productive by turning all life's leisure into work, and real by turning all our being into doing, we will only succeed in producing a hell on earth. If we have no silence, God is not heard in our music. If we have no rest, God does not bless our work. If we twist our lives out of shape in order to fill every corner of them with action and experience, God will seem silently to withdraw from our hearts and leave us empty.
If we do not keep pace with our companions, perhaps it is because we hear a different drummer. Let us step to the music we hear, however measured or far away.
When the world becomes repressive and ugly and mean, we need form and beauty and balance and music--that's when artists feel most pressed into service.
Symphonies aim at healing the soul by taking human emotions and concerns and, through the alchemy of art, make us somehow feel better about all of life--and us. Music touches something higher in us directly. All of the arts touch something that is beyond the ordinary machinations of life. And this "something higher and more" makes even the most homespun art somehow therapeutic.
Harry Truman once said that listening to good music made him think of the way things ought to be, instead of the way they are. In the presence of music, we gain a taste of Heaven and Earth. Music is vitally important to our spiritual health: clearing the air, changing our mood, taking us to faraway places, revealing mysteries, calming the soul, allowing us true glimpses into the past.
"That's me singing," Charlie says. "That's me playing the water drum, too. If you know my song, you know Charlie. Everyone has a song. God gives each a song. That's how we know who we are. Our song tells us who we are.
Gramma died 25 years after she stopped mothering me. But she left me something special, and I hear it whenever the need occurs. A tune wafts in unexpectedly when I am kneading bread or hanging laundry on the line. The opening phrase of an old hymn bursts from my mouth:
"Are ye able," I suddenly sing out.
"To believe that Spirit triumphs," I can hear Gramma picking up the next line. The verses poses a great question about faith, but I am thinking about what Gramma gave me.
"Lillian," I answer, "thank you for my voice."
When we surround ourselves with sounds of nature, we are soothed and healed, comforted by the songs of our mother, the Earth. And who is there to sing back to the Earth?
In the concert hall, each motionless listener is part of the performance. The concentration of the player charges the electric tension in the auditorium and returns to the playLIer magnified. I like the fact that "LISTEN" is an anagram of "SILENT". Silence is not something that is there before the music begins and after it stops. It is the essence of the music itself, the vital ingredient that makes it possible for the music to exist at all. It's wonderful when the audience is part of this productive silence.
Music is pleasing not only because of the sound but because of the silence that is in it: without the alternation of sound and silence, there would be no rhythm. If we strive to be happy by filling the silence of life with sound, productive by turning all life's leisure into work, and real by turning all our being into doing, we will only succeed in producing a hell on earth. If we have no silence, God is not heard in our music. If we have no rest, God does not bless our work. If we twist our lives out of shape in order to fill every corner of them with action and experience, God will seem silently to withdraw from our hearts and leave us empty.
Dear Seiji,
Music is the glue that connects many parallel universes that run through your life. I am amazed at how often you can find grace and simplicity in this complex world. Through your talent, perseverance, and faith in the power of music, you have blazed a path for aspiring musicians from all over the globe.
Yo-Yo Ma