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.
