September 27, 2004
Silence
My friend Barbara writes that in poetry, one finds God most present in the places where the meter breaks. I wonder, then, that if in music, one might find God most present in the silences.
An ensemble plays with careful attention to “attacking” the notes precisely together. It is a pleasure when this happens, a mark of training and skill, a “tight” performance. But the remarkable and far more winsome reading is when the players release the notes together. It is there that the fabric and direction of the melody, the arrangement, is informed, when the silences are heard.
I think of the great symphony orchestras, but especially of the Count Basie band so well known for writing the book on big band jazz. For one thing, they are masters of dynamics, a skill largely lost or simply ignored in much modern pop music, but for another, their hard, driving swing — pianissimo or triple forte — comes across not only in the attack together, but in the way they release together, break the meter, as it were, so well-synchronized that one could slip a razor blade between the notes.
Elijah sought God in the midst of all the overwhelming dissonance only finally to hear God in the “sound of gentle stillness.”