October 5, 2005

Dots

An ad came in the mail the other day. It announced, and wanted me to be excited about it, a piano that plays all by itself at the touch of a button.

It assured me that I could hear — and see — my piano play my favorite songs — jazz to country, classical to broadway. It’s almost like your favorite artists right in your living room, it claimed. A player grand “system” awaits you, now starting at under $10,000.

The great pianist Vladimir Horowitz once was asked, What is music? He answered that music is made up of little dots on a page, some black and some white. He said that anyone can learn to “read the dots,” then render them quite accurately on some instrument, rather like an expert stenographer might transcribe shorthand.

But, he warned, this is not music. One must first discover what is “behind the dots” for there to be music. Then one must play this discovery from one’s heart in one’s own way with spirit and imagination, maybe even quite differently from time to time, and certainly not be satisfied merely to replicate it, for only then is there music.

CP and I were lately at a reception in the great lobby of one of these fashionably musty “retirement” high-rises with motel art on the walls, artificial schefflera in Rooms-to-Go Ming Dynasty urns, and make-believe orientals on the floors. Over in one corner, the faux theme continued. Nineteenth-century parlor ballads labored forth out of a splendid Yamaha grand, its Walter-Mitty keys pock-a-ta, pock-a-ta-ing right along. There was nobody on its bench and absolutely nothing behind its dots.

As soon as CP was distracted elsewhere and nobody was watching, I disconnected its life support. The silence was music to my ears.

[Visit Episcopal Relief and Development at http://www.er-d.org/ to make a donation to Katrina or Rita Relief or Episcopal Migration Ministries at emm@episcopalchurch.org to volunteer to assist displaced people with housing.]

October 4, 2005

Over

The other day I was looking back up the hill I’m supposed to be over and wondering exactly where it was that I crossed the top and started down. As I thought about it, I realized the answer was not all that clear. The nadirs, I’ve not a lot of trouble remembering, but the apex seems altogether lost.

As it goes in mountain climbing, getting to the top is always a mighty important occasion. Some people plant flags, usually one from whatever country they call home, or maybe build some kind of more permanent monument marking the occasion. The trip to the moon was a kind of hill to be over. They planted a flag, I remember, but there being no atmosphere, hence, no breeze, and their wanting the flag to show so you could see whose it was, they had to provide the it with some help to hold it out and make it look as if it was in the midst of a wave. I guess it’s still there.

I don’t ever remember planting a flag or a monument when I went over, whenever that was, but I am sure that I went or else life wouldn’t seem so down hill and picking up speed as it does now. I must not have lingered or I would remember.

I was once a member of a group of eight or so folk most of whom had had or was winding down some kind of profession. We called ourselves the Over the Hill Gang. We provided audience and counsel for those who were not yet over, or didn’t think they were, who were still, one might say, under the hill, that is, still on the climbing side.

Most hills have a number of climbing sides, but only one top. It’s probably good for the climbers to have an idea what the top looks like so they could recognize it when they got there. So our function was maybe to tell them what to look for as best we could, what was the evidence, what were the signs, and where might the best climbing paths be where one could get at least a toe hold. Since none of us really knew, it made for some considerable albeit interesting ambiguity.

The more I listened to my colleagues tell what it was like, the more tops I imagined. But it was never like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and their Hole in the Wall Gang.

[Visit Episcopal Relief and Development at http://www.er-d.org/ to make a donation to Katrina or Rita Relief or Episcopal Migration Ministries at emm@episcopalchurch.org to volunteer to assist displaced people with housing.]