FMS-Blog : The Wildly Whimsical, Mostly Musical WebLog
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
Dead Poets and Drum Machines
I was chatting to a colleague at my office job this afternoon whose grandfather sadly passed away very recently. Apparently, this gentleman was a pianist and composer, mostly of rags, and unbeknown to the family until a couple of days ago he had left behind a whole bunch of manuscripts written by his own hand. The colleague in question no longer has any member of her family who are able to play piano to any great standard and felt at a loss as to what to do with the music, so offered it to me as a gift.
Apart from anything else, I think it will be difficult to accept this man's music - the one and only copy of the musical voice he carried within him until just weeks ago - without providing the family with something to keep that would be equally meaningful. So, I said that I would make use of this lady's grandfather's work and also try to make a good recording of his music so that her family would have a good idea of how his compositions actually sound - to be able to hear his unique, personal voice sing through the scraps of paper he had allowed to gather dust in an attic over the past five to six decades.
This is all very well, of course, and I hope that this gesture will mean that we - myself and this gent's family - will equally benefit from this amazing find, but the whole circumstances surrounding the situation did get me on to thinking about all the music that does not end up getting revived - going unpublished, unrecorded and ultimately unloved by anyone when the sand of time passes by those who created these treasures. What will happen to the music, for example, that myself and the guys in TFF have produced over the last few years once we have gone? Of course, to some extent this harks back to the classic human ego syndrome in which things are only viewed as having value if they are considered eternal in some way (we can see this when we read the romantic rhetoric surrounding love that never dies, enduring all things, including the death of those who do the loving). And this reminds me of the wise words of George Harrison - often recited even now by a wise and dear friend of mine - that all things must pass, and more than this that their passing does not negate their inherent value. Infact, in accepting that a given thing is transient by its very nature, such as a fine wine, a folk tune long forgotten or a momentary glance from a loved one, we are able to elevate its value in the moment that it does exist. So, yes, many of the things I write or record will inevitably vanish into the ether in days or years to come but this makes it all the more important to appreciate them right now, at least for me!
Apart from anything else, I think it will be difficult to accept this man's music - the one and only copy of the musical voice he carried within him until just weeks ago - without providing the family with something to keep that would be equally meaningful. So, I said that I would make use of this lady's grandfather's work and also try to make a good recording of his music so that her family would have a good idea of how his compositions actually sound - to be able to hear his unique, personal voice sing through the scraps of paper he had allowed to gather dust in an attic over the past five to six decades.
This is all very well, of course, and I hope that this gesture will mean that we - myself and this gent's family - will equally benefit from this amazing find, but the whole circumstances surrounding the situation did get me on to thinking about all the music that does not end up getting revived - going unpublished, unrecorded and ultimately unloved by anyone when the sand of time passes by those who created these treasures. What will happen to the music, for example, that myself and the guys in TFF have produced over the last few years once we have gone? Of course, to some extent this harks back to the classic human ego syndrome in which things are only viewed as having value if they are considered eternal in some way (we can see this when we read the romantic rhetoric surrounding love that never dies, enduring all things, including the death of those who do the loving). And this reminds me of the wise words of George Harrison - often recited even now by a wise and dear friend of mine - that all things must pass, and more than this that their passing does not negate their inherent value. Infact, in accepting that a given thing is transient by its very nature, such as a fine wine, a folk tune long forgotten or a momentary glance from a loved one, we are able to elevate its value in the moment that it does exist. So, yes, many of the things I write or record will inevitably vanish into the ether in days or years to come but this makes it all the more important to appreciate them right now, at least for me!
