"If everyone just played their own note imagine what harmony would result on this planet!"
We are carried over an invisible platform by each melody, each score creating a bond between us and the sound. We are carried into a space of beauty, treated to the special effects of its purpose and held fast until the last note rings into silence. It's what brings us to our feet at that precious moment of conclusion and we applaud with joy. Silence then propels us back across the bridge to our world of noise, vibration and frequencies.
Even before our first breath of life, we are surrounded by the tempos and rhythms of the blood and the womb, the first song of our life. We hear the heartbeat — the original drum of our existence.
Growing up at Grand River I heard all kinds of music. My mother who played piano rhythm in the dance halls during World War Two entertained us all as her hands bounced across the keys. I heard fiddle and guitar, every genre of music, acapella harmony and styles of singing that don't even exist anymore.
I remember my first time hearing the ancient songs of my ancestors being sung by those who carried the voices and felt it ignite the core of my being.
This is why we sing
We stand in frequencies of life that affect us as we navigate the challenges that appear before us and dissolve as those frequencies change. For example, do you have a special song?
Is there music that always makes you feel better, or inspires you to move, dance, stomp your feet, and throw your whole body into movement? Is there music that makes you hit the "off" button immediately it's so disturbing to you?
Sing
My friend Sadie Buck always says if you can talk you can sing and if you're ever in a situation to sing with her be ready. Singing reduces stress and not only brings more oxygen to the brain it triggers endorphins. According to TIME magazine singing has cumulative benefits. Besides that, it is our implement to create incredible works of art for the world to enjoy.
Everything has a sound. Everyone is a Sound.
Play your own note
I've always believed we exist as a note. If I remain true to myself I am playing my own note. If I try to become what I'm not I am playing someone else's note. If everyone just played their own note imagine what harmony would result on this planet!
Understanding the Bridge
Several years ago, my aunt was living in a senior care centre and coming to the end of her life. Relatives were called and everyone that could go to see her to say their goodbyes. When I got there my eldest sister was crying and holding our Auntie's hand. She got up and I sat down to take her place. Auntie's breath was laboured and slow. At that moment I felt the need to sing and told my sister so. She said that would be perfect. After asking what Auntie's favourite song was I began to sing "Amazing Grace".
As the others in the room joined in, I could feel it giving me the strength to breathe, to find the words through my grief. Our voices filled the room with a sound that stopped the patients and workers outside her door. By the time we got to the last verse, Auntie was gone.
We are told that by the time we breathe our last breath, our ancestors are already singing to welcome us on the other side. She was home.
The Sound of Silence
"Where do you think the sound goes when the last note rings into silence?"
There weren't many people I could ask that question when it first occurred to me to ask it. I was living in Nashville living and learning in the music industry when I met songwriter, Jamie O'Hara. He didn't laugh. We conversed for a while through various possibilities and in the end left it as something we each would continue to ponder. The answers hovered in the probability waves of quantum theory.
Our Elders
In my community of Six Nations four elderly siblings died of the coronavirus within hours and days of one another. Their presence as faith keepers and helpers in the longhouse and the sound of Art's singing is now a thundering silence that fills the spaces they left. It is beyond comprehension.
On the bridge, time ceases to exist.
When we are immersed in music we are present in the magic of each note. That is the way of it when we are learning. Our very soul responds. Science has proven that our very cells record their responses to music by altering them.
In the old ways of every culture on earth, songs were passed down from one singer to another. I'm guessing that for centuries every singer who became a carrier of songs has felt as if they had lost the entire library of knowledge when those elders passed. Being a singer is a responsibility to the voices of those who have gone before. When we sing our ancestors sing with us.
In the silence the door to those songs open to those who hear beyond the bridge.
I know now that while our ears hear only silence at the end of a song the bridge between worlds carries those last notes into infinity. While those of us on Earth continue to play our own notes, create and share our music I can rest assured that those loved ones now gone, friends and relatives alike, are dancing to the notes now ringing on the other side.
Sing.
First Published on Medium.com