Music is said to be the universal language and yet the only place the majority of us find it is on the radio, television, smoke filled bar or walking past a music store in a beat up strip mall.
Author Brian Andreas writes about his Grandmother, “Don’t you hear it? I shook my head no and then she started to dance and suddenly there was music everywhere.”
In nature there are no commercial breaks. The keeper of all that jazz doesn’t feel a need to capitalize on the presence of something so incredible.
The Beatles holding out as long as they did to release the rights to their music to ITunes was nothing more than the human ego set on fire. If alive today John Lennon would’ve done it differently. His passion was music and the creation of it but more importantly he felt incredibly moved more by what his presentations did to the average person and all too often he would sit with the masters of the biz questioning them on why they felt a personal need to keep the music from those it was meant for.
Daryl Hall from Hall and Oates hasn’t disappeared; rather than chase fans around the world where ticket fees feed everybody but the band and their fans…he operates a free web page called Live from Daryl’s House where the music featured covers everything from Smokey Robinson to Good Charlotte.
Don’t you hear it?
Music is where I go to hide.
Away from radio, the recording studio, DJ service and movie premieres music continues to play a major importance but only if it’s brought to the center of the room by way of the sound maker being what it was intended to do. A ceiling fan is an incredible rhythm machine. So is a dishwasher swooshing around water like it a fingerprint being left to play on the neck of a guitar or the gentle white sound a television makes when a channel can’t be found. What I miss more than anything is the rattle, hum and tap, tap, click swing clunk of an extremely busy office overflowing with electronic typewriters.
What if we stopped searching for our favorite songs and took up the call of a bright red cardinal?
I swear the father figure was addicted to the clinking of metal because he constantly banged his tools on things. Mom found pleasure in washing dishes because the slip, swish, clink of a large dinner plate moved from the water to the rack invited personal pleasure. My sister picked fights because the ringing out of several voices was like going to a KISS concert.
Ocean waves are music. Touch it up with the sound of gulls and funky little birds with long legs and tiny feet combined with the occasional dolphin that spews sea junk into the damp air while your feet fight to even the position of your body slowly sinking between the toes.
On the homestead, I’ve got six doves, a blue crowned conure and a cockatiel singing at the same time; loud only to those who find no music in squawks, chirps, cooing and peck peck peck into the large bowl of seeds then swoopy de swoop a bird bath in the middle of the afternoon.
Peel away your desire to hear Michael Buble and Pearl Jam. Drop your craving to crank up Lady Gaga and Madonna. Seize control of the efforts placed in purchasing Kid Rock, Dave Matthews and the occasional memory making Celine Dion and reacquaint your day to the sounds that are with you everyday but you’ve learned to tune them out.
True inner peace begins when you learn to listen to your heart beat; radio and television will be there when you get back.
If you’re 2011 is nothing more than a rotten nearly dry orange or tart apple sitting on the bottom of a fruit bowl know you’ve got the power to make a choice; be in a great mood or sulk. I can’t be the only one who see’s a frown and runs. Save that face for the clowns at the circus and get your tail back on the trail of real music.
A radio guy telling you to turn me off is a broadcaster inviting you to be yourself again.
Silence is music especially when you retrain yourself to recognize the essence of everything around you; a car engine purring while heat pours from the vents keeping your fingertips and toes nicely warm; a cold wind hiding behind a very large tree anxiously waiting for you to walk by so it can chill your spine. The scratching of pen meeting paper while physically writing thank you notes to those that purchased you gifts for Christmas.
Don’t you hear it?
I will always believe in you first…
arroecollins@clearchannel.com
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