MUSIC TO MY EARS . . .

      My daughter once correctly noted, "Dad doesn't have any rhythm."  She could also have correctly added: singing ability or musical talent.  
  
    I once told a friend that my parents had paid for me to have seven years of piano lessons.  "You have had seven years of piano?" was the obvious question.  The truthful answer was "No. I have had one year of piano lessons seven times."  Playing ball, hanging out with friends (though we had not heard of 'hanging out' in those days), and other youthful interests pushed piano lessons to the proverbial back burner.

   In college, when our fraternity would serenade someone's girlfriend or we were in inter-fraternity competition, my part was to 'lip sync' (although, again the term had not yet been born).  And, I did my role well.  On two of the three occasions that I 'sang', we won the trophy.

   Stan is a church member in a parish where I was once minister.  He is 'world class', having played at Grand Ole Opry and with the legendary Bill Monroe's Blue Grass Boys.  So, I offered him a 'deal':  he would teach me to play the banjo so that I could offer that during a worship service and he would , in turn , preach the sermon.  Well, he tried.  My right hand progressed pretty well through the rolls.  Chords with the left hand?  Those were another matter.  And, along with the thing going constantly out of  tune (even my deaf music ear could detect that), I surrendered to the obvious.  However, I concur with someone's definition of banjo:
"It's Spanish for 'out of tune'."  Still, I love it and love hearing Stan play.

    Lacking the knowledge to discuss the nuances of musical composition and  artistic performance, I fall back upon a position no more sophisticated than "I just know what I like and what I donot."  To the despair of an undergraduate girlfriend who was a music major, I was slow in learning not to applaud between movements of symphonies.  At least  I was not like my high school coach who once told our class that he did not like music by 'sympathy orchestras.'

    Several years ago, a neighbor came into our house. Music was playing on the stereo (remember those?).  She said, "I don't understand you."  I answered, "Take a number and get in line. But what are you talking about?"  She said, "Sometimes I come to visit and you are listening to the Statler Brothers and at other times, it's Beethoven."  "I like it all" was the honest answer.  Today, it would be a stretch to say that I like all that gets called 'music'. 

   Shakespeare wrote that "music has charms to soothe a savage breast, to soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak."  Sounds like circumstances that occasionally visit most humans.

    This morning while preparing for a rather solemn responsibility upcoming later today, I have found solace, strength, a balm from an array of music.  Along with songs that promise strong faith perspectives, I have again been 'charmed' by some of Mozart's early symphonies.

    I wear hearing aids as a gesture of accomodation to advancing years and having stood too close to a chain saw while wearing no hearing protection when a younger man.  But just now I am aware that I am hearing the Mozart from the computer and do not have those instruments with me.  What a delight !

   Listen to the music today.
  
     Satchel