Cadence

Could it be that old song of mine, drifting from the speakers?  It could have the simplicity of a folk tune, four square conventional harmony, phrasing as regular as the tick of a clock.

The thin, wavering note could become anything, could swell to a rich, textured sweep of strings from bass to somewhere beyond the stratosphere, endless harmonics layering their vibrations to tether the sky to the earth.  Or it could tease out single notes from round about, a scraping dissonance to lead here, there, towards each dead end in the maze.  Breath held, can it be held as long as the note?  Of course not, the animal must take in oxygen, cannot be exalted to the unwordly frequency of the string.  It has no need, could stay suspended in the air forever, until you remember that the note is attached to the instrument, the arm that plays it.  The arm will weaken and shake - fall – eventually.

A tentative thud of deep percussion, felt more than heard.  It is an unsteady heartbeat of imperceptible tone, still unable to hint at modality.  Waiting.  Wistful.  And still the note, hovering above.  At last, with the imperceptible communication that the listener joins, a wordless understanding that it will move, and the breath is held yet tighter as the heart lifts to tumble over with the change of note and harmony floods through as if via an artery, understood at last, energising the spirit and flowing toward each extremity.

But still there is no major or minor, it is a conference where words tumble over one another, but nothing is said.  The uncertainty is potential, until the point of commitment the music could go anywhere, a rubber band held taught and poised for flight. 

And then the warm resonance of the middle notes.  A certainty at last – the bright third of the major key.  A pulse.  How can the disembodied sound become a part of the physique? And yet it does, it takes possession of the body, a sigh, a lift, a sway – not just heard but absorbed and mirrored. The recognisable, almost jolly tune is an intrusion, its garish predictability at odds with the subtlety of the first note, the melody insufficiently cerebral, no indulging of the fragile drama I had created within, just… life.  In all its ordinariness.

But still the resonance lingers from that first hint at what could be, too late to prevent the hairline fracture which it swiftly pinpointed and into which it immediately headed, like water finding the crack in the glass and imperceptibly leaking through.  Harmony is already challenged, cadence no longer certain. 

Sure enough, interruptions begin to shake the tune, fissures appearing in its implicated pattern of I, IV, V.  It begins to crack, and fragment.  Modulation?  It shudders through the veins, flowing back towards the heart, blue now, heavy and disturbing.  No, I didn’t mean it.  Give it back, that safe, secure and familiar melody.  I did not love it, but it held me in a supported, confined webbing that did not tip and sway and threaten to cast me into unfathomable atonality.  And now I am the melody, and everything around is challenging harmony, nothing underpinning the dogged, focused drive towards the cadence I had planned.  It is not the surrounding harmony that is wrong – it is rich, textured, filled with tugging suspensions that yearn to pull me into the resolution.  Imaginative, unpredictable, but not departed from the tonality of the piece.  It is I, wandering off on a cadenza of my own, refusing to acknowledge the new key, that prevents the dovetailing of the chords. 

Stop.  Abandon the resistance – let it rise to the surface and join with the inexorable shifting of the music around, it will clash, twang and squeeze at the ears but it will set the way, prepare for the cadence.  Pressing on without a change in direction will only result in another interruption, the music has changed key, it is not my old song. 

The crescendo, muffled by hands pressed hard against the ears will reach a climactic height, making clinging to the old piece impossible.  I can let it be overwritten, or I can drift in to join it.  I can reach out to catch the pivot chord, participate in the perfect cadence, and let it go smoothly and softly.  And there will be other music, sewing up this tune does not end the concert, never to be played again.  It will never be played precisely the same, but the series of notes can be picked up again and new instruments can present a myriad of opportunities for different timbres, still more perfect vibrations and harmonics, new tempi and contrasting movements.  There is another to be played, as the dying notes of the last spin away, released into the silent past.