“Algebra’s like sheet music, the important thing isn’t can you read music, it’s can you hear it. Can you hear the music?”
Occasionally, some tell you that music is made of the notes and the silence; music is in the frequencies, the emotion, the passion.
So, you hear music in
The wet-fluffing of the soft trumpets,
the reedy quack of the oboes,
the clear and shrill pierces of the flute,
the soft stirring of the violin.
Maybe you hear it in the rapid chunks
of overdriven guitar
or the meaty tinges of drums.
But if that were all that music was, life would be very dull indeed.
You can hear music in
numbers;
2:3:4:5:6.
A rhythm, nonsensical,
tapped among fingers at
a table.
Unseen, unheard,
simplifications and repetitions.
Chords, melodies, left to wither
in the stale air.
You can hear music in
threads scratching strings,
the squeaks of rubber soles against
wooden floors,
The thrum of a rotary
grinder, squealing its way
across rods of rebar.
You can hear music in
The raindrops slipping
off the eaves of the squat buildings,
trickling as rivers or lakes do;
The soft whump
of a refrigerator door
and the airy whistle of
a child blowing into a
half-full glass.
You can hear music in
the muffled reverberations of
a rubber band double-stretched between
the two fingers.
The muddy thumps of worn boots
clip-clopping over the pantry floor.
You can hear music in
the sharp ping
of a shuttle’s impact
on the blue strings of
a badminton racket,
the remnants of old echoes
lingering in hollow caves,
stairwells, empty halls
circular chambers and tall buildings
like faint letters floating in the air.
The importance of sound lies
perhaps not in the notes
hummed on a sweet summer day
but instead on the
middle-aged woman in the garden
tending to her tomatoes,
passing the time with
an improvised melody.
Music is
the refinement of sound,
honed to simple lines.
A means against entropy,
finding stability within
chaotic noise.
