Thimbles, Rhythms & Natures of Things - Part 2
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FINDING THE RHYTHM
Rhythm is an invisible action or quality, not a 'thing'. However and wherever it is perceived, bear in mind there is underlying rhythm intrinsic to all things, not just music, where it is most easily noticed. Music itself is invisible waves within a sound spectrum to which we humans are sensitive to hearing only a narrow band of its sound waves, though we also possess ability to sense more subtle intrinsic "music" or rhythm in all things we are able to perceive.
That said, it is a rhymic universe in which we live. There is a 'music of the spheres' as well as the music in hills and waters, often perceived only by the most sensitive souls who have allowed it to make itself known to them.
I'm ever aware of whether or not my poetry has its own rhythm. If I sense that its rhythm is minimal, then, for me, the words are merely prose, not poetry. This quality has little to do with whether any of its words rhyme, fall into a traditional meter or possess other poetic landmarks. It is simply an essential rhythm one is aware of as its words are being read silently or recited aloud and perceived. So whether the perception is of the audible sound of it, or merely as a personal response, the sense of its rhythm or of its lack is felt or noticed. It's almost an indefinable, yet a visceral experience; one simply knows it when it is there and clearly, intuitively misses it if it is lacking, however vaguely the actual difference is or is consciously noted. Even "poetic prose" embodies this sense of rhythm in it. The words may be "everyday", without floweriness, rhyme, alliteration, simile - but they have an internal "beat", a subtle rhythm of their own in those lines and in that arrangement. One knows - this is poetry.
I love Emily Dickinson's definition of poetry. She tells her only-ever mentor, Thomas Higginson, whom she called her 'perceptor":
“If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only ways I know it. - Is there any other way?”
I have to agree.
So- therein lay the difference in poetry and prose, I think. At least, to me, it is.
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Rhythm (from Greek ῥυθμός – rhythmos, "any regular recurring motion,symmetry
In the performance arts, rhythm is the timing of events on a human scale; of musical sounds and silences, of the steps of a dance, or the meter of spoken language and poetry.
Prose is the most typical form of written language, applying ordinary grammatical structure and natural flow of speech, rather than rhythmic structure, as in traditional poetry.
___Definitions Source: Wikipedia.org
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Some animal species posses auditory sensitivity to receive and perceive more of the sound spectrum than humans. Judging by their instantaneous and agitated responses to them, they seem to be physically pained by those ultra-sonic sounds.
Perhaps all animals, - perhaps all living things, - are responsive to sound stimuli. I've noticed birds on the patio pausing to notice and cock their heads as though to better hear when I'm playing my piano, humming or attempting to sing. They seem to lack a harsh critical gene, unlike my cat, Toulouse,- who always howled when I sang, though he just looked contentedly somnolent when I played the piano! PIcky, picky! But it's obvious that animals have awareness of and response to elements of music and rhythm.
Rhythm which exists in the sound spectrum, or is perceived by other species, however, are subjects for more scientific focus and are not what is being considered here.
We are looking at the more esoteric quality of rhythm of which a person may or may not be consciously aware, may even overlook - or under-look - in the daily rush of events. It exists in non-auditory features of our lives as well as the auditory and may be written on our DNA from our earliest contacts with our earthly experience, either as our species or as individual members of it. In any case, it is fully worth awareness and cultivation.
Of course, it's in music that rhythm is most easily identified as rhythm, though its essence is also what characterizes it wherever it is found or potentially found.
Extremely insistent musical rhythms are seldom overlooked and easily capture the attention and emotions of people who may otherwise be unaware of rhythms around them. In fact, each new generation tends to ferret out and claim as their own a sound and rhythm different from former generations. These become their generational identity, expressing their separateness and independence. Most of us have been in both roles in our lifetimes!
Naturally, parents are often exasperated by this! My mother called much of my 'popular' music "monotonous". To me, hers seemed draggy.
In my personal music catalogue, beginning with the earlier Broadway musical composers from preceding decades such as the Gershwins, Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, Rogers & Hart and Rodgers & Hammerstein, - among my favorites, back then and usually rendered in the Charleston mode or a sing-song manner of those those earlier years during the epochs in which they'd been composed, those rather tedious times in which vocalists tended to all sound alike or else sound like refugees from the Burlesque, which they may have been.
Then along came the big bands beloved by my elder siblings, when singers were beginning to venture into more personal signature sound and swing rhythms, along with jitterbug, nonsense lyrics,"Frankie" hero-worship, (to which I enthusiastically subscribed), crowding around the juke boxes at the local soda bar, inserting coins, and listening to "Your Hit Parade" on on radio every Saturday night. Movie sound themes brought in other special music and rhythms which flooded the field of "new" stuff.
Then the early 50s brought me the much smoother, "cooler" music then popular as I advanced to college and on into early married life. This included sweeping music like "Ebb Tide", sentimental ballads, silkiy Latin rhythms and sophisticated upbeat danceable themes. I loved it all. This preceded the advent of the big bang of rock music of the late 50s and throughout the 60s with the Beatles, Elvis and all their imitators and other innovators, to give partner with and give way to the Disco craze of the 70s and all that has followed and/or been revived and updated up till now! It's amusing to hear really old pieces being sung by new artists who seem to accept them as "current".
Meanwhile, buying the sheet music and playing the piano kept me "up with it" and reasonably "current", even when my life centered and revolved around the small confines of my home and marriage. My records and my piano always "played" a major role in my life, in fact, at least as significant as my writing and other outlets.
The antique pump organ
Mother loved music and had a lovely pump organ when she was a child. Her beloved father gave it to her when she was twelve. He died that same year. How she treasured that instrument! It was very difficult for a little tyke to play, though. My legs wouldn't reach the "pump pedals", much less pump them while seated on the bench to reach the keys!
But what she really would have preferred was for me to play the harp and I thought that would be great, too. But, alas, Del Rio had no actual music store for any variety of instruments, nor any harp teachers, had one been available. It was piano or nothing for Nellieanna. Happily, it suited me well.
By lucky break, there was a self-proclaimed piano teacher who needed a studio for giving her students lessons; and down on the end of Main Street, there happened to be a vacant lot just past the Piggly-Wiggly grocery for lease with no code restrictions in that town. And here was a Mother with a kid who could benefit from lessons, and the Mother who happened to have acquired a very small early-style travel trailer which she needed to park somewhere so Dad wouldn't be alarmed that she might be planning it for an art trip, - which, of course, WAS her ultimate plan! Ah, the tangled webs . . .
So a mutual exchange was agreed upon and young Nellieanna embarked upon some real piano lessons in that little travel trailer near the Piggly Wiggly.
By the way, Dad accepted my new-found acceleration of piano playing with appreciative, if stoic, calm approval. He loved the classics, and was especially fond of Strauss waltzes. I suppose that, so long as my playing was in keeping with those kinds of music, he was quite happy for me to take lessons and play the piano. Never-mind that he never knew the shady details or inquired into what way the lessons were being funded! He never stinted when it came to spending on educational things, so he just didn't question it, I guess! Plus, Mother was expert at being able to obtain her art supplies inconspicuously - while writing an unidentified dollar check here and another dollar check there. (I know this because tangible proof of those cancelled checks from then still occupy a file box in the bottom of my closet!)
In any case and in all aspects, it was a lovely period for me.
Before I can introduce my own deeper relationship with music, and particurly with piano, I must mention how another phase of this hub's sequence relates to it; namely: 'The Natures of Things'.
The nature of things applies not only to sewing and sensing rhythms and feeling the essence of music, but to plumbing the truest natures of all things and relationships in our environment.
One's personal odyssey into It begins with HUMAN NATURE: both our own and others', if we are ever to begin to understand "What's It All About, Alfie" - as the Bacharach-David song explores.
The underlying causes, quality and very foundations of life here on Earth relate and revolve around really understanding 'the nature of things'. If not, we merely mechanically go through the motions unawares, like me trying to "practice" on my little toy piano when we were at the ranch, where there was no other piano for me to play. I tried to keep my little fingers limber, but the tinny output was discouraging.
Consider the clashes between other people and within our environment; - they hinge on overlooking inability to communicate, due to lack of a simple recognition and understanding that there ARE inherent, 'given' natures to all the parts and when we ignore or undermine them, they fail to mesh and to work properly, much like using incorrect tips on an electric drill or using liniment instead of vanilla in a cake batter. (Mother did that once, by the way!)
In a word, - when we misfire it, it backfires.
So bear with me. I'll try to not be too "monotonous". :-)
And - thank you in advance for sticking with this and following along this far. Part 3 of this hub's sequence will soon be available, too. I hope it will prove worth your while for your kindness of indulging me!
It is proving valuable to me.
Hugs -Nellieanna
We may never know
But it is here -
This thing
That makes it real.
If, in our time,
We mention it,
It is to
Better feel.
Else we might never know
The rhythmic peal
That makes it
Dance and sing.
Yet, if while we play
We discover it
So it becomes
A truly magic thing!
______© Nellieanna H. Hay
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- Thimbles, Rhythms & Natures of Things - Part 3
THE NATURE OF THINGS
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- Thimbles, Rhythm & Natures of Things - Part 4
PIANOS I HAVE KNOWN AND LOVED
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Dusty! Thank you! - As I was reading your own experience with music, specfically with the frustration to making it on a piano of your youth, I could f-e-e-l and identify with so much of it and could easily appreciate what differs from my own piano experience.
To me the saddest thing in the whole account is: "I refused to take lessons and was banned from touching it." That may not compare in every aspect, but "what if" Amadeus Mozart had been banned from touching a piano because he felt no need or desire to take formal lessons which would have burdened his own inner musical sources with tiresome stuff?
He might have "had it" inside before it became obvious. He could have been a late bloomer or maybe just fooled around when alone as you did. If authoritative parents had insisted their way "or else", - well, the world of music might have lost one of its greatest treasures! And that "what-if" is NOT outside of possible outcomes!
Every one with native musical sensibility, whatever the level, needs the chance to manifest it with freedom to express it from inside-out. Youngsters need it to be accepted and encouraged. If instead, the tender seeds of it are squelched, whether by an ultimatum to either give it up or endure endless dreary-levels with no hope of being allowed to explore his own kind of latent self-expression, too, at the same time as doing the "practice exercises" to train his dexterity & good mind-to-hand coordination, well - that leaves out the most vital "exercise" of his inner light. It has to be an assault on both individual potential and individual interest in mastering the instrument. Being offered only either/or is the ultimate assault.
It's like taking away books because a kid isn't instantly absorbed with and enamored of them. Good intentions can even misfire. Parents want to give the kids good solid foundations with the basics, but all too often, it stifles the masterpieces that might have been built on it, only to end up with producing 'mechanical' players lacking the slightest real "sense of" the music and rhythm to make it appealing to oneself or listeners. - What IS the point in that, one wonders.
Wow. I guess it may be more usual for the downers to the full and free blossoming of a young talent and interest to come in forms of either subtle mis-steering by various psychological means, probably mostly unintended or, as mIne was - may be included in an over-all failure to be not "counted in" as a person, while being genuinely loved, while conversely being expected to perform, with or without my permission or desire to do so, which was how it was in several areas other than playing the piano. At least I was never excluded from trying it on my own, but my confidence tenuous from being assaulted in those various ways, though I know it was intended to do just the opposite! That was due to a failure of what this hub series' point really is: finding each individual person and thing's essential nature, then allowing additions to FIT it, if the person is to discover his/her fullest development.
I'm fairly sure most of us must finally find that for ourselves, as you went on to do with your musical sensitivity finding ways to express itself! But how much smoother it would be to find the nourishment for it at the beginning, even before it is fully apparent, as Mozart surely found his right away. It wouldn't have happened that way if he'd been denied the piano.
Part of this Rhythm segment of this series I'd writte became too much and too ponderous to be included here within the theme, but it's the odyssey of the rest of my own musical experience and its similar challenges to yours. I'd intended it an illustration of one of the main principles of the hub-series, which is the empowering of & overcoming blocks & barriers to actually finding and FEELING the rhythm, teamed and tempered with one's own true nature so it can be expressed as only oneself can. It can be in genuinely "making music" rather than just sound, or in any other outpouring.
That's has always been my greatest quest and hope, no matter the blocks. But they were powerfully real enough to help subdue it into the shadows for too long, until it just couldn't be denied!
When it happens, one knows it and that is when one honestly feels that "I've made music", as you surely feel when your guitar helps to translate your own musical "wellspring" into an audible flow on the piano, where you'd been banned early on.
That doesn't have to rely on applause or "brownie points" on a chart. It IS of itself and is infinitely worth all the rest when it happens. If it extends beyond, it's on its own authenticity.
So what I heard in your story is a familiar one, as you've also "worked around" downers to find and express what is within yourself in the best way for YOU to make your own music! I love that, Dusty!!!
Nellieanna, my guitars are my first love, but the irony of the piano was when my father died, no one wanted it, other than me so there was no argument and it sits here at my finger tips to play on at will. It is part of a collection of 9 guitars a mandolin and a banjo. Occasionally people that play come by for a BBQ and sometimes all night sessions of playing on all the instruments, I've considered a drum set but I have an electronic machine that I can dial up drums and get the beat that works but it can't add-lib so we often just slap guitar bodies. People want to know where I get chords and want a name for them so they can write them down and take them home, and I have to tell them I'm sure a name exists but most all my chords are "built by sound" and I don't know what they are. So they take a picture with their phone. Paul McCartney couldn't read music either and look at his accomplishments, it was a matter of all 4 knowing what each other was doing, and so it is here if a new guy shows up he has to puff his cigar and watch, if he's good he'll fall in on a repeat.
I took 6 days of flamenco, and 6 days of classical lessons at U of Arizona just to speed up finger picking over much of my flat picking as it allows you room to let the guitar have the voice or vocals over some one actually singing. I have learned much from watching and listening from this guy who is out standing and employs a great camera angle in his work. Check him out, I think you'll enjoy him, I'll try and pick out what I consider a good one, peace dust
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOo-PvffL7Q&feature
not the one I wanted but still a fair representation, there are 175 to choose from one I wanted was where he had a capo on the 4,5,6 string mixing keys in one song that produced a magical sound.
An interpretive masterpiece Nellieanna!;)
I loved this every bit as much as I loved the first part. I could almost see myself in Main Street and the Piggly Wiggly (What on earth is that?).
It was a lovely hub, Nellie, absolutely lovely.
I was caught up in the flow of it. My musical tastes are nothing like these mentioned here. although I have enjoyed the beetle and "Ebb Tide" brought back a memory for me that I thought was well forgotten.
How right you are about rhythm and beat having so much influence, There are few rhythms that bring out emotion for me than a rhythm of beats in threes - triplets perhaps! (no I don't mean Waltz Time) but absolutely beats of threes, descending by a few semitones, that Verdi and Bellini uses so effectively. It wrenches the soul right out of my body and brings me to a higher plane so that I feel.... Wow!
I'm getting emotional now, thinking of it. It always works for me.
Or tone semitone-semitone, tone; repeated sonorously. Incredible!!!
I wish you could have heard me just now, laughing heartedly, and with several tears gathering in my eyes over your triumph, Dusty!
So you were the one to get that piano! wow. :-))
Then your inventory of other instruments which you also play!- wow.
I'll bet those all-nighters are something to behold. Well, of course - drums do provide the beat, but it's clear that you've found an alternative way.
You really have the RHYTHM.
How amusing and amazing that you know and use the chords which you 'build by sound" namelessly. Those inquiring for their origin would have to track the same paths as you did to get that quality of chords!
Ah, yes Paul McCartney and his team did pretty well "by sound". One of his renditions is on my follow-up Part 3 to this, in fact. A genius. As you say - (and as is exactly what I'm trying to express here) - is that those 4 guys truly tapped into each other's natures and rhythms and the rest is, as they say - history!
Flamenco - AH. As a young teenager I read a novel - I don't even remember it's title but the heroine, Oriana, was a gypsy flamenco dancer, so of course, all her escapades revolved around it. I'd never seen that art performed, but how vividly I pictured it. I still mentally add "Malaqueña" to those mental dance scenes. Many years later, on a visit to San Antonio, walking along the stroll-side of the Riverwalk on a balmy summer evening, we came to the place where an open air stage across the water was featuring a live troupe of Flamenco dancers! We sat on the grass, enthralled with the verve and beauty of it all.
What a guitar master this Igor is! It's more than wonderful. Those subtle slips of his into minor key and the visceral beat behind all the changes and trills - it's gorgeous. I'm bookmarking his place on U-tube. I'll be following up on other of his selections, but I liked this one mucho. As you say, he produced magical sound.
I've always loved good guitar picking. - At college in my early years, an exchange student from Mexico often serenaded the girls' dorms. It was like classic Latin guitar. One of my favorite Latin pieces is the -
Concierto de Aranjuez de Joaquín Rodrigo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxwceLlaODM&feature
And my first love loved pickin'' and singin'. He died long ago but I have a tape of some of his renditions. You'd probably get a kick out of them. They're really old-timey cowboy songs. A tribute to him on my website:
http://nellieanna.com/kennethtribute.html
There is supposed to be a background of his narrating one of the song-stories, Zebra Dun on it. But it's flakey on my Mac, so not sure if it's still audible.
Then my son agreed to take violin lessons just to get more into strings so he could play the guitar, which his father wouldn't allow him. Not sure if he ever did but I know that now his son plays it in his own band and it seems to be well done, judging by the enthusiasm, though all I've seen of it is 'still' pix on Facebook.
Thanks for more of this fascinating side of you, Dusty! :-)
Mentalist - that is, for sure, soaring praise from you! Thank you! I'm thrilled that you came by. Hugs.
Ian - I'm smiling. Piggly Wiggly was then one of the two available Anglo grocers in town. Piggly's still operate in small Texas towns, I believe.
In San Felipe, the Mexican settlement within Del Rio city limits, there was a grocer, Figueroa's, which I loved to visit with my Dad when he went there to buy supplies for the ranch workers. It smelled divine in there and the oiled wooden floor was so - cushy! I'd wander around he shelves looking at everything while Dad was selecting the dried frijoles, salt pork slabs, corn masa, dried hot peppers, salt and other Mexican seasonings, flour, sugar, onions & garlic, etc - nothing fancy or perishable, but enough basics for Dominga to make her family's meals without any refrigeration, of course. At the ranch, there were milk cows & chickens available to her for milk and eggs, and sometimes there'd be a little plot growing onions & peppers which Mother tried to cultivate in spite of deer and rabbits invading it.
The other Del Rio grocer on Main St. was H.E.B. (for its founder, H.E. Butts). It still thrives but has a more spacious location these days. And it is now the heart behind the most upscale, incredible gourmet food stores in the big Texas cities, which are called "Central Market", featuring every possible gourmet delicacy and delectable. Of course, all the imported beers and wines, fine candies, deli foods, fish and seafood, organic meats and veggies - everything "top drawer". Reminds me of the foods department in Harrod's of London when we visited there. My ex-daughter-in-law would rather eat dirt than anything NOT from Central Market unless she's dining at a posh restaurant, where no telling the food sources. (wink) I like it OK but there's not one all that close to my neighborhood so I don't frequent it. But in Del Rio, H.E.B. was our choice when George & I were spending time at the ranch and commuting to D.R. for our supplies. They featured a lot of the same stuff as Central Market, but not quite as lavishly presented or PRd.
"Ebb Tide" is a lovely, magical song which lifts me with its feeling of the ocean. I still love it in spite of its very specific connection with the courtship which led to my first marriage. (blush) But its special sound and the time frame fit perfectly with what I was trying to zero in on for this hub.
Yes, triplet beats are entrancing. I love waltz beat except that it is often so - predictable. But those beats to which you refer are NOT predictable. They are just magnetic, in fact.
I am so pleased that you like this segment of the series, too. I just finally felt ok about Part 3, so just finished posting it. I must now add its link to this Part 2.
Hugs.
This is a beautiful and thought-provoking hub. I play piano too, but your hub started me thinking about the rhythms in nature, the universe and life. Thank you!
Beautifully put Nellieanna. I suppose some of us are so busy rushing around and caught up in the humdrum of life, that we do not even hear the rhythms all around us.
Waltz beat is great to dance to! Seems the clasics have one thing in common. Musically they are simple. The rythm flows...
Flag up and awesome!
My mother still plays her piano inspired by her Southern roots...
I am having a wallow. In 'Ebb Tide'. (I just realised, there was a heavy pub there, and it wasn't deliberate). It is so redolent of the film scores or so many movies of a great space of time. And how many people have covered it!
I almost expected the divine Audrey Hepburn or Grace Kelly to wander into the room... Ha ha ha!
Alicia, thank you! I think my awareness of the rhythm stems from the difficulty I had from not really learning to count the beats, but relying on my own sense of the rhythm. In essence, I play the notes by reading every note but play the timing "by ear" and by glance at the music. The noteos look faster or slower on the page! haha! I can read the timing indicators enough to figure it out for unfamiliar pieces, but obviously if I know how a song is timed by being familiar with it, I can play the timing much more effectively.
Amazing how much we learn about things beyond the immediate challenges and activities, isn't it? Hugs.
dianacharles. It's always such a joy to see you've dropped by. Yes it is easy to become so caught up in making a living that we miss many of the fine-tuned aspects of living it. One thing that always brings me close is, when out at the ranch where there is virtually no other noise pollution except the soft metallic sound of the windmill or distant animal sounds, the 'music of the canyons' is so perceptible.
Here in the city that kind of nature's sound must be translated to closer listening for nature in its symphony: birds and breezes, rustling of leaves on trees, rain falling (OH - how we need to hear that here and now!). But sometimes even the man-made sounds like the drone of a distant train, even lawn mowers in the early morning hours can be lovely. One sound I once captured in a little poem about a special city sound:
I love the swishing sound
Of cars
On rain-glistened streets
And listening for
Another song of ours.
______© Nellieanna H. Hay
Dear Dallas - Thank you!
Loved that comment about the waltz beat. It is a lovely rhythm for dancing. I remember learning that box-step at Arthur Murray's when I was finally allowed to take dance lessons. Prior to that, I'd always danced to my own rhythms, by myself in the living room. My steps fit the beats but were not according to the known patterns.
Yes, now that you mention it, I suppose that classics do share a common kind of basic timing, which allows each tempo to play with that beat in slightly different pace, speed, style or mood, with each variation superimposed on the basic pattern and described with specific terms such as lento - adagio - andante - allegro - vivace - presto, etc. as the overall timing moves from slow to fast and expresses a choice of moods and effects with set parameters and descriptive terms.
But any sort of syncopation or innovation is rare in the classics and very subtle, if any. Surely the grand music known as classic has had to "measure up" to more rigid, 'set' standards, just as traditional ballet and poetry meters have been virtually closed to much in the ways of variation or obviousness, such categories for the allowable differences being pre-set and firmly expected and adhered to if a result is to be called ballet or poetry.
Now, though, any confines are optional & less rigid as more variables are recognized & respected. But all forms are part of the character of the audible facets of our experience which give us pleasure and a bridge from & between the primitive & the civilized, I suppose. It's all exciting!
My poor eyesight undoubtedly affords me acute sensitivity to sound and movement. There are pitches of some human speaking voices which are punishment to my ears and others which are music to them. If I'm awake, I can hear the smallest sound in this big ole two story house from almost anywhere in it. Then I have to follow its strength to find its source! I've even heard & been awakened by that very VERY light inner 'click' of an alarm clock just shortly before it lets out the loud arousing sound which is designed to wake me up.
I can so imagine your darling mother playing her piano, guided by her Southern heart and roots!
Ah, yes, Ian. (good pun, which I found when I wallowed in it for a few! :) And it's musical does indeed bring to mind so many gorgeous film scores which are so accessible to my mind on reminding. Now wouldn't it be pleasant if Audrey or Grace happened by!!
My favorite rendition of "Ebb Tide" is and always has been the instrumental by its composer, Frank Chacksfield, which rendition even starts with the seagulls & the splashing sounds of waves on the shoreline. Then they fold into the music as it soars up and into those magnificent sounds of the music itself.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Xdn1Z9o64c
I've loved playing the song on the piano since I first heard it and fell in love with it - and by it.
The song's lyrics are lovely, too, but I've felt that the singing of them with the music distracts too much from the magnificence of the mood created instrumentally. But they fit the music to a T and arouse goose bumps too
First the tide rushes in
Plants a kiss on the shore
Then rolls out to sea
And the sea is very still once more
So I rush to your side
Like the oncoming tide
With one burning thought
Will your arms open wide
At last we're face to face
And as we kiss through an embrace
I can tell, you are love
Really mine in the rain
In the dark, in the sun
oh, like the tide at its ebb
I'm at peace in the web of your arms
Your creativity is a medly of various inputs that create a multi-media symphony with their "built-in" rymthms...
Nellie, I didn't need the link. That was the version I listened to. We must be singing from the same hymn sheet, my friend
Oh, my - Dallas - your compliment is just delicious! Thank you! Hugs!
an - I should have known! We must be in sync, that's so!!
My company arrives tomorrow night & I'm hardly any more ready than I was! But he's "like family", so it won't be the first time he's seen things short of perfect. Also he'll be in a seminar most of every day & will be studying for a major professional re-qualification exam at the end of it , lasting all day Saturday. So I can sneak in some dusting, etc. when he's not here. heh heh . . .
Excellent, thought-provoking hub, Nellieanna, with lovely pictures. A dove, living somewhere near, always comes to me when I play the recorder. An Indian Minor comes when I play the piano. I can list more. Birds love the sounds produced by musical instruments.
Ps: Love your new avatar. You are beautiful!
Ah, Martie - thank you, m'dear! I love sumi-e style art and have done a bit of it, though none as lovely as these illustrations.
I'm delighted that you've also noticed the way birds are attracted to music. Thank you for the lovely compliment, too! And in that regard - LOOK WHO TALKS!
I'm about to get showered and cleaned up for my visitor. Everything is in order (of some sort) and anything left out will just have to be overlooked. I'm quite "done in" and ready to call it a "clean" and let it go at that. I'm getting a little indication that he may not stay here the entire week. He has friends closer to the hotel where the Seminar is to be. Driving across Dallas in high-traffic hours is not to be chosen if there is a better alternative and I am across town from that hotel. I'll enjoy visiting with him in any amount. He brings first-hand news of things at my ranch, for one thing.
So here I go to shower & shampoo! Can hardly wait! I'm not tidy now! I'm wondering - who invented housecleaning, anyway?
Hugs.
.
Life is all about rhythms. I picked up learning how to play a guitar at an early age and didn't go far without it by my side. I loved to play, actually played it more back then than I do now, it seems to sit around in the corner on it's stand and beg me to caress it's strings from time to time.
I am teaching my youngest son to play, he isn't quite as exuberant as I thought he might be, however I believe once you attract a child to an instrument you leave them with a deep impression and you never know when they may develop a passion for what you have shown them.
Your hubs are always filled with GOLD a wealth of information to digest and your poetry need I say more other than BRILLIANT, PASSIONATE, ROMANTIC and leaving us longing for more. You are such a great ARTIST my friend in every sense of the word. You master it and thrive on teaching what you know of Life and Lady you know so much.
I love every word you share with your friends here. The comments left are a labryinth of words. With all the comments you recieve on each masterpiece you create, you could write dozens of more hubs from them alone.
I finally got around to your second chapter and have plans on picking up my pace, you are never forgotten by the Saddlerider, he just pokes along and finds his way to you, one of the finest writers here at the hubs. Hugs to you from me....
Ken - Ah. I love guitar too - to hear. I have no idea how to play. My son wanted to play it, but as I mentioned, he wasn't allowed to. I agree with what you say, that when you introduce a child to an instrument, it will often come back to him later as a real passion.
Thank you so much for those wonderful compliments, Ken. Yes, I have spent some years observing and muddling through Life until at some point, chunks of it have fallen into clearer perspective, making sense and ceasing to be fragmented. It becomes clarified and simpler to look at & to live in my present and to look more forward to the future. Those memories remind me how valuable it is to live "now" and possibly to be valuable to share with others who have experienced or are experiencing and working through similar things of their own.
I feel very fortunate to receive many refreshing & valuable comments here which could become hubs on their own, too.
I understand about getting to all the good hubs to be read and followed. Sometimes I wish I had more hours in the day! But what a privilege and pleasure it is to have access to many good writers here,of whom you're among the top. I deeply appreciate both your own writings and your wonderful comments about mine!
Hugs & thanks!
The subject of rhythm is of interest to me, although I tend to think in terms of a buildings rhythm. It's tied to how people walk through it, or how it relates to a car. I bookmarked this hub to read closer.
Leroy- I'm pleased that you mentioned and brought out the rhythm in buildings! I have a lot of feeling for buildings, too, and of course - there is rhythm in the lines of a building, in its balance and relationship with the earth - everything. Thank you!
50 Caliber Level 7 Commenter 10 months ago
Nellieanna, an interesting continuation, or addition following title, I find much I know here, and much I know but never dwindled at the subject long enough to really know. I grew up with a piano standing up right in the front room, I refused to take lessons and was banned from touching it. All the siblings took lessons, my fathers wife could play mechanically but I failed to see any entertainment value in hearing it. There were plenty of hours it was left sans a guard that I was able to play with learning by reading about it's parts and functions, then chords, and later breaking it down into familiar tunes of current day, that were simple but satisfying to me, especially starting above the simplest level it seemed the others were forced to do, along with recitals that a beating would be better in my young mind. It transferred to the guitar well and after still note reading music to this day, if I can get it figured by ear and run it down the neck of one of many guitars, I then can pull out the bench and play it on the piano after hunting the key. It sorta ties back to your "hearing ability" you wrote on. I have the ability to hear it and now with 5 decades, generally strike a semblance of playing what I heard. I remember going to the Hollywood Bowl and listening to the orchestra and learning to hear a particular instrument and pick it out hearing it above the rest noting it's significance to the whole of the performance, a mental game I suppose. I enjoyed this, thank you, dust