The Big Stereo

On Saturday morning, my wife and I were talking about music. The boys were away on a school ski trip, so I figured I would fire up the "big stereo" in the living room. It has surround sound and a big, fat bass cabinet. 

After some Ravel, I thought I would give my own classical piano CD a listen on that system; I'd only listened in the car. How a CD sounds on various stereos is, in deed, partly a result of the composition, recording and mixing of the music, but it mostly has to do with the "mastering," which is done in a by a person who specializes in that step. Without it, any recording will sound unprofessional. 

I played a piano piece and then I wanted to try our the lone track with a full orchestration and a vocal. It's my arrangement of the traditional folk song, "Oh, Shenandoah." I loved the way it sounded; the basses (four pizzicato basses in the orchestral section and one jazz-style upright bass layered in for some more sustain) shook the neighborhood and my wife commented that she was blown away -- she'd never heard them like that before. 

She mentioned that because she hears me working on my music all of the time, upstairs, that she sometimes thinks she has really heard the pieces. This listening made her realize that she really hasn't -- not in their most powerfully sonic form. 

And there it is. How we see life depends on the "speakers" we "hear" it on, doesn't it? Dynamic range is everything. We may think we know a thing, but if we don't see it with all of its colors or hear it with its complete sonic qualities, our evaluations and decisions are, unavoidably, ill-informed. Our reactions may be the wrong ones; our impressions incomplete.

Some people, by nature, simply don't possess the proper equipment, either because of deficiency or circumstance. Others won't put the metaphoric CD into a different player and hear is on different speakers. Too much work. 

It can all lead to a lifetime of incomplete impact and half-fueled judgements. 

On a literal level, my musical intentions are made clear on the big stereo. I'm glad to have given Karen the full picture. Her excellent ear deserves the best sound. 

Internalized Einstein: Grown-ups, Kids and Time

One of the big mysteries of maturity is why or how the perception of the passage of time changes -- why time seems to go so much faster as we get older. Conjectures include biochemical brain changes and increased actual activity, often as a result of responsibility -- a greater amount of time spent working for others and not playing for ourselves. But I think it might be that we, somehow, lose the  connection that kids seem to have to Tao. Kids are so much better at just being that adults are.

"Aragorn's Quest"

Yesterday, my eight-year-old was playing a video game called Aragorn's Quest. I played it first, a year or so ago. I enjoyed it very much and I completed the entire game. He played it after me, and he finished it as well. 

Yesterday, he was playing it. "That was a pretty darned good game, wasn't it?" I said, watching.

"Yeah," he replied. "How come you don't play it anymore, Dad -- if you liked it so much?"

"I don't know." I replied. "I don't much like playing games after I have finished them -- it's not fun to me."

"Oh," he said, sounding a little perplexed by this answer.

When it comes down to it, I'm a little perplexed by it, too.

The Sword or the Microscope?

Here, in America, we seem to have great respect for "whistle-blowers." That can be good, of course. If someone steps up to point out corruption or unfair practices, it can be quite the heroic act. Whistle-blowers sometimes put themselves at risk of losing their jobs or even more, in some cases.

But I'm afraid of one thing: that some young people seem to be equating the finding of fault with being intellectual, courageous and perceptive. In other words, intellectuality (which, in recent years, has continued to dress itself from the wardrobe of cynicism) is now seen by many young folks as a sword instead of as a microscope -- as a weapon to hone for attack instead of an instrument for seeking truth.

The Audience (A Fable?)

The world is music -- the greatest composition, ever, penned by the Unseen Composer. The Composer has crafted the world out of four elements: rhythm, melody, timbre, and harmony. And when he raises His baton, the world shifts and changes around us, like sound waves washing over a concert audience. We watch; we listen.

But we hear things differently.

Some follow only the rhythm, because that can be done with no thought and with no work. A rhythm drives everyone's body. Rhythm, is easy. Rhythm, is powerful. Rhythm lives inside our chests and rings within our ears in deepest silence. Rhythm, is easy. Rhythm is powerful.

The Glass Wall (A Riff for 2/2)

Allow me to "riff, " cats and kittens, on self-perception for a moment. For maximum effect, take these one at a time, with a breath in-between. And-a one; and a-two:

I don't know about you, but I think I look much different than I really do. Not necessarily better or worse, but different: a little more sketchy; a little more linear; a little more in medias res. In pictures, I seem so concrete; so prosaic.

Sometimes, I see myself as, like, the shadow of a moving cloud, but I'm really just . . . gravitized.