The Music of the World

21 December, 2009
By Raphael Fraser

Music of the World

No, not “World Music” – whatever that is; it’s always seemed to me to represent some sort of cash-in on the odd cycles the West seems to go through of fascination with this or that non-Anglo-Saxon culture. ;)

What I mean is the music that is all around us, all the time. I don’t even just mean birdsong, buskers, or the bits of  music (yes, I was stretching for another ‘b’ word ;) ) that come from shops or cars as we or they pass by. I mean all the sounds that surround us. Right now the birds and insects chirping outside my window glide above the distant rumble of a plane overhead, a whirring of fans, the sound of conversation down the hall, and the clicking of my keyboard as I  type. – And fragments of (semi :P ) rhythmic tapping as I absent-mindedly drum on the desk. Much of this has rhythm; even the rumble of the jet has its own rhythm, gradually rising and falling – slow and continuous, rather than rapid and discrete. Ditto the fans’ whirring. The birds/bugs have a rhythm (albeit fairly monotonous, these buggers), and there is definite rhythm in the speech I can hear, and in my typing. Most of these sounds have a pitch, and some have melody – even normal speech has melody (referred to as prosody).

While walking between the train station and work/home every day I hear even more varied sounds, some competing, some blending in various interesting and unexpected ways. Somehow they tie together even more musically because of the regular pulse of my footsteps, as I pass from one set of sounds through to another, and yet another as I walk.

In the same way that the more you look at the sky the more you see, the more you listen to the music of the world around you the more you will hear it. It’s not necessarily something to capture, or try to represent in some way – if nothing else, because it’s the sounds, the music, that surround us anyway, so we don’t need to record or represent it; we just need to listen. 8)

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2 Responses to The Music of the World

  1. Kristie on 21 December, 2009 at 9:17 pm

    Haha you said 'semi'

  2. Adrian on 8 February, 2010 at 7:19 am

    I like this way of thinking. It bothers me to see people getting around the place with white bods plugging their ears and isolating them from the real world. Just like it helps maintain one's sanity to see grass from time to time, hearing crickets and wind has got to be good for you.

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