Adam’s Note: This was an actual love letter I sent recently, alas to no avail… But we’ve got to put ourselves out there, right?
I’m sitting here struggling not to become single-minded, as I pride myself on generally being a pretty pluralistic thinker. However, lately there’s been one note that’s been playing over and over way deep down inside me. Like any good song, it wavers in intensity and tone; but it is a single note that reverberates in my ears. Where there’s been clarity in these days I have begun to recognize what the note is – but I’ve never had much of an ear, and honestly I have often only sung because I like to hear myself sing. Lately though, I’ve been urgently wanting to see the color from this note enter my sight, as its been a long time since the dust of old music was swept from my shoulders. One note has brought that urgency, unlike any music I’ve heard before.
Like springtime itself, I find my insides woke up when I first heard this sound, gracious and generous and real, coming through my ears. It was tender, yet had a fierceness and strength I only imagined from a bloated composition. Without the airs of classical music or the insinuation of emo, this note has all the sophistication and complexity I relish from great music – but unlike any other music, I find myself entwined in the composition’s single tone. I guess its just another way of being greedy, wanting to hear the same musician, the same song, the same note over and over.
Now, I have to remember that I’m not a musician. I don’t know how to dissect a song or pick out a hit or anything like that. Instead, I’m just a layman who finds beauty in the everyday. There’s nothing wrong with having a song to fill my day – and this tune, its feels familiar, common, and understandable. At the same time I have a lingering suspicion that there is an tremendous cacophony of noise – discordant and mucky, harmonious and clear – waiting beyond that single note. I want to hear those sounds, and the silence that fills the space between those sounds. I want to know when the music doesn’t play, and when there are too many musicians in the orchestra pit or on the stage. But I have never heard the rest of it, and can only suspect what is back there behind the first act.
There is an ether within this mystery I can accept, that is for sure, and honestly one of the most appealing realities of this note may be its unknowableness. I am attracted to the unknown. I also have a great capacity for listening to long, long pieces of music, and really hearing them, feeling them. I want to join an ensemble, even with only my layman’s understanding. I can follow, I can accompany, I can even wait in the wings – my only need is to know if the music wants to be heard the way I can listen – or if there is some other requirement or commitment or obligation or desire that I just cannot hear in that lingering tune. Unfortunately, I have been overly simplistic, a little naïve and a little assuming at times. Musicians have clobbered me over the head before, and that’s okay, because I appreciate music that really speaks to me. (That was meant to be a little funny.)
Like a lot of people, when I get nervous I talk fast, and all that would’ve come out in three seconds over the phone and not made much sense. I’m afraid it still may not.
Adam F.C. Fletcher 