The song of the chimes
should be ringing from the porch
but you like silence
change haiku June 3, 2012
The song of the chimes
should be ringing from the porch
but you like silence
without music September 6, 2011
“Without music, life would be a mistake.”
-Friedrich Nietzsch
Do I need to say anything else about this? Everyone living inside the pages of Grace Awakening knows all about this, except Ares perhaps, but even he thinks it’s important enough to try to destroy.
we are the music May 24, 2011
See, when you get down to the basics of it, everything’s just molecules vibrating. Which is what music is, what sound is, vibrations in the air. So we’re all part of that music and the worthier it is, the more voices we can add to it, the better we all are.”
~Charles de Lint in Moonlight and Vines. p. 33
(I told you I’d have something to say about this eventually, didn’t I?)
I am fascinated by music therapy. You may be thinking of the research that shows how music connects for Altzheimer’s patients, but that’s not what I mean.
In the harp community research has been done on how sound waves align cells, and can induce healing at the molecular level. It’s rather profound and quite amazing. Playing the harp is a rather meditative thing. With your legs and arms wrapped around the sound box , the sound waves travel through your body. You can feel it. Certain notes can make your head tingle or your spine stretch. You can feel the music reaching inside your arms and legs and relaxing or awakening your body. This is why harp therapy exists. With a harp tuned in a pentatonic scale (five notes, all complimentary) it is impossible to make any dissonance, and even bed-bound patients can hold a small harp against their chest, strumming or plucking and absorbing those sound waves.
Some innovative hospitals include such therapy in their medical teams.
Sonic therapy, The Harps of Lorien, and International Harp Therapy are just some of the projects that explore the magic and mystery of this form of healing and transition therapy. I’m so glad that I have my harps and have the opportunity to sit and absorb the science of the universe whenever I want.
Music is a miracle and we are part of its resonance in the world.
♪ kind, kind, kind vibrations ♪ May 17, 2011
Here is a lovely thought from fantasy author Charles de Lint that fits with the kindness assignment my grade 7s are working on this week:
“It’s funny what a difference a positive attitude can have. When you go out of your way to be nice to people, or do something positive for those who can’t always help themselves…it comes back to you. I don’t mean you gain something personally. It’s just that the world becomes a little bit of a better place, the music becomes a little more upbeat, and how can you not gain something from that?
See, when you get down to the basics of it, everything’s just molecules vibrating. Which is what music is, what sound is, vibrations in the air. So we’re all part of that music and the worthier it is, the more voices we can add to it, the better we all are.”
~Charles de Lint in Moonlight and Vines. p. 33.
What more can I add to Mr. de Lint’s words?
(Well, I will add something eventually, but for now, let’s just absorb his brilliance).
music for my iPod March 13, 2011
One of my former students, who was a beta reader for Grace Awakening, wrote me the other day to tell me how she was thinking about downloading some music for her iPod. She thought, “I should download that song Ben wrote for Grace” and then realised with some chagrin, oh wait. That doesn’t really exist.
The note has made me smile all week. I love that my characters are so alive! I love that Ben is so real that people want to find the music described in the book for their iPod.
Of course, there was music that inspired all the music Ben writes for Grace. I don’t think I could have written it without remembering the feeling of listening to a composition created just for me by a musician I adored. (See the blog entitled “Starry Night of Music” for a general sense of it!) When I find the missing cassette tape, I promise to post my Graduation tune (providing the composer gives permission, that is). Until then, perhaps you can find something inspiring among the demo reels at Bhatia Music?
Starry night of music October 13, 2010
Whenever someone finishes Grace Awakening and comes to me gushing with kind words, I always ask the reader what her favourite part was. Just last week I asked and, as usual, the response was, “the concert scene.” When I ask what readers like about this scene, they often can’t narrow it down. Some say they love the description of the music. Some identify that they most strongly sense the connection, love, and longing between Grace and Ben. Occasionally they wonder about the origins of the scene. I generally smile cryptically and make some remark about my vivid imagination. I don’t think they believe me.
All fiction comes from a germ of truth. It’s manipulated, twisted, mangled and broken apart, but it starts from somewhere real. So while the concert scene does come from my imagination, it also comes from a very vivid reality. So here’s a ‘truth behind the fiction’ moment for you.
Once upon a time, when I was Grace’s age, I was head over heels for a boy who was going to be a composer. While other boys were out playing sports, hanging out finding trouble, or avoiding homework, he was filling his world with music. Consequently, he was filling my world with music as well, because he shared liberally with all his friends: his comfortable friends from school as well as the obsessed friend of his little sister (a.k.a. me). We spoke of the day when his music would be played in a concert hall by a full orchestra. He told me that he had had a dream where I was at his concert sitting the front row cheering. I was completely sincere as I promised that when that day came I would be there to share the experience. I could imagine no greater joy. Drifting off to sleep, I would close my eyes and live the moment. I saw all the details. I could hear the music yet to be composed and my heart was full of the dream.
As often happens, youthful fantasies remain unfulfilled. I have never had the pleasure of sitting in a concert hall listening to a live orchestra play his music. That privilege has gone to others. However, one day I was visiting in Vancouver and looking in a tourist brochure for something to do when my eye was grabbed by a familiar name. I was astonished to see that my old friend’s music was being used as the score for a presentation at the H. R. MacMillan Planetarium. I walked from the hotel over a bridge and along the shore to the Planetarium to buy my tickets several hours before the performance. I didn’t want to risk a sell-out. The lady behind the counter smiled knowingly when I gushed that I was there because the composer was my old friend. I walked and shopped to kill time, and then returned at the appointed hour, flush with memories that had filled my head as I’d wandered. I think my eyes were sparkling with the adolescent adoration that marked many of my summers, because the lady seemed amused as she took my ticket and chuckled, “Enjoy the show!”
I settled into my seat and stared into the artificial heavens with the dozen or so other people in the auditorium while the adventure of space travel unfolded above our heads. I knew the score well, but in the blackened planetarium, with the surround sound echoing all around, it reached inside me and awoke memories and emotions that had been safely dormant for several years. Melodies and harmonies danced and stretched through my consciousness and into the distant reaches of space.
When the show was over, I blinked back to an unfamiliar reality. I waited until the room was almost empty before I stumbled, still lost in the music, to the elevator to join the ticket lady and an older couple . The wife remarked to her husband, “I didn’t think much of that music, did you?” The ticket lady grinned at me and said, “I’m guessing you didn’t have any complaints?” I gave her a wan smile as I shook my head and floated out of the building on the memories and melodies.
And that was the germ of the concert scene. The power of music can craft entire worlds, as it does for Grace. One can’t help wondering where that power comes from, and the pondering of these “What if” scenarios is what leads a writer to construct an imaginary world to answer the question. Memories are fuel for imagination.
(and here’s the main theme of the program, should you wish to hear it yourself)
Shawn L. Bird 
music & time November 12, 2011
Tags: Aaron Copland, music, postaday2011
I feel like I should be overflowing with thoughts on this one, but it’s just sitting here, resonance humming in my head.
Yes, Aaron.
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