This
is an updated version of one of the first blog posts I ever wrote. I was
prompted to go find it when my granddaughter told me she’d never heard The
Battle Hymn of the Republic. Whaaattt???! So – being the good grandma that I am
(try to be) I found it for her – guess where – on YouTube. So now she has heard
it and also knows that we live in a republic. I couldn’t just let it go at the
music. I know, I know. Anyway, here’s the piece. Feel free to leave your own
list.
The
Path Through the Music
There’s
a reason why we call it mood music. Your whole life is filled with mood and
there’s a kind and quality of music that suits each of them. That’s why music
accompanies every scene in a modern movie and why, when the music changes, we
know how to feel.
Think
about it for a moment. When you watch old black and white motion pictures,
often the scenes will not have music, and it comes at us out of a warped time
machine. One that fails to realize how life is enhanced by the addition of
music. Fortunately that’s not the case anymore. If you listen to music on your
iPod while be-bopping down the street it’s exactly like being in your own movie,
isn’t it? I contend that the path that leads
directly to God is lined on both sides with music; powerful, gentle, exciting
and beautiful. Sometimes even judgmental (talk about mood).
Music
is the sixth sense. I can open my mouth and with only one nano second of
thought bring forth a sound that is not like any other sense. I know the
mechanics of it – air passing over vocal cords, vibrations – all that. But it’s
what I have in my head that’s informing those vibrations. I have to think that
composers of old like Handel and Bach as well as more recent geniuses like John
Rutter (What Sweeter Music) and Natalie Sleeth
(Joy in the Morning), who have been tapped from on high to bring a touch of
heaven to earth. What was given to them is on a far greater scale than what this
humble singer produces, but isn’t it wonderful that music is the universal
language that falls like righteous rain on all of us?
I’ve
recently come across some pieces that I don’t seem to be able to listen to hard
enough. I want to squeeze every bit of beauty from them.
Melissa Venema playing Il Silenzio on the trumpet exquisitely. Here, she’s
the age of our own trumpet playing granddaughter and I think of Lillie every
time I hear it.
And
this one, Gabriel’s Oboe, played by Henrik Chaim. I’ll wander into Heaven on these notes some day.
Last but not least is
The Battle Hymn of the Republic conducted by First Lieutenant
Alexandra Borza. Simply awesome!
I would love to know what plays along your path.
Image: Free Digital Photos
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