Revolve your ear
To pick up the signal.

Is it a cry for help?
Is it a lover's laughter?
Is it a sonnet, a prose?
Is it a glorious opera?
Is it a breeze rustling the trees' leaves?

Does it bite?
Does it sting?
Does it fight?
Does it ring?
Does it call?
Does it sing?

No matter,
It is now yours
Now and forever.

For music is but one language with many dialects.

Friends, Quiet in the Corner

I dreamt of a land
That flowed sky to sea
With other dreamers
Just like me.

We slid through channels
Plotting cautious course
Eyes full of chaos
And remorse.

What silence we shared
Quietude given
To one another
Eternal.

Some fools want only words
But the quiescent are fulfilled in one another
For noise does naught for none.

Pluck!

From there!
The sound emerges.
A pinpoint, no, a cave,
A wave that echoes as it surges
Through the echoes
Of my imagination
What configuration will it show?
When into my ear it flows . . .

WAIT!
The throes of death!
I, in horror, fascinated
Cold mounds of sweat
That channel my curious anxiety,

For the sound does not live past today,
Not even this moment may contain it,
It is eternal, but manifest only momentarily,
In memory it may emerge again
But for now, it rests.

Objective achieved.

Rock, Get It? (It's a Pun)

It’s true I feel the rhythm
Of the earth beneath my feet
For all of glorious creation
Has a tune or primal beat
But should you ever stop
And choose to leave me on my own
Remember:
Just because I rock doesn’t mean I’m made of stone.

Many times I’ve played
My companion only wind
When others of my kind
Their melodies rescind
But forget not my humanity
When I have perfect tone
Just because I rock doesn’t mean I’m made of stone.

If your feet begin to tap
With involuntary life
Or the piercing wedge of music’s edge
Cuts you like a knife
Don’t forget the one
Who endures on his throne
Just because I rock doesn’t mean I’m made of stone.

Organic Love

"I'd love to get up for you but I can't." Puzzled, I balked, a confused expression frozen on my face. Quickly he clarified. "If I get up the music stops, and we can't have that, can we? The music cannot stop, it can never stop." And so he remained seated, the smooth sounds coalescing around and amidst his appendages.

It was many a night before I could sleep restlessly again.

Muzak Nation

It has become increasingly obvious to me that the musical tastes of the culture in which I am immersed have dramatically affected, or at the very least are an accurate representation of, the model of our national psyche. With greater and greater frequency we are becoming used to "hearing" sounds without actually consciously registering them. Background music has become a way of life, indeed even a metaphor for our daily activities. The fact is that there are very few who truly listen to music simply for the sake of listening to music. Two hundred years ago there was a barrier between the drudgery of daily life and the fantastic enterprise that was the music industry: now, no such barrier exists - any and all music can be transferred and transmogrified until it is unrecognizable.

Consider this: when was the last time that you ceased all activity and merely listened to a song? It is rare that this happens, for we are consumed with efficiency, and stopping all activity when we could be doing something seems ludicrous. Certainly there are levels of activity, but I have found that I tend to listen to music while doing both more and less - writing a paper, falling asleep, reading, exercising, driving, etc. These varied levels of activity still denote the presence of something which consciously or subconsciously occupies some part of our mind, thereby diluting the musical experience.

The point that I'm trying to make is that it is incredibly important that we do not adopt a philosophy of partial involvement. This manner of world-view will make even the most involving tasks apathy-inducing and dull, as there is always some corner of our mind that we reserve for . . . something else.

Listening to music.

Remember:
Sensation and intellect are meaningless without one another. Strive to keep them in balance, a pleasant duality, not a warring schism.

Music speaks to me in a way that touches me more profoundly than any other medium. It is at the same time elegant, boisterous, mysterious, and something that is both entirely new and indescribably old.

Also interesting is the distinction between rythm and music. I feel that while the two are commonly lumped together, there is a distinct difference. The bubbling of a brook, wind in the trees, a cricket chirping - these are music. But rythm is a human invention, born of a love for predictability and order. When the two are coalesced then is this new form created, a distinctly human kind of music. The ultimate culmination of the beautiful chaos of music and the boring repetition of rythm.

I understand that it may seem that I am biased towards one of the two, but the truth is that it is the human kind of music that I appreciate most. That divine dissonance that expands and becomes more than music or rythm alone is key to my own music. The truth is that we all have our own kind of "human music," and mine is.