It is the second of December and I am sitting in my front
room looking out of a somewhat dirty window onto the most glorious display of
Winter Sun. The chair under the wisteria is smoking a vapour of cold mist, and
the grass is glistening with moisture and sunlight. The sky is totally clear
and there seems a little bit of hope in the world this morning.
So I will get the whining out of the way so that I can look
out of the window some more and enjoy the rest of the day.
My last blog mentioned the nuisance that I have recently
endured with BSkyB and Virgin. Having spent yesterday hearing my friend’s
frustration with Virgin, I am beginning to worry that I may have jumped into
another fire of devilish corporatism, but then I knew that I would. It was just
the lesser of two evils. If you want to watch television, have a phone call and
have fast internet access, then there are a few organizations that have got the
entire market sewn up.
C’est la vie.
But it doesn’t stop with this form of media.
I am increasingly frustrated by the total monopoly in our
lives that we simply accept without question because these careful bods have
ensured that there really is no alternative.
Take Bill Gates. You have to admire his prophetic
deliverance regarding the internet. He had the foresight to see that we were
going be reliant on his products, and once we were all hooked, then the
inflation could begin.
That is how capitalism works.
But Bill, I’ve been very loyal to you. Doesn’t that deserve
some sort of gratitude?
I’ve never had a pirate copy of any Windows/Microsoft
product. I’ve loyally typed in the codes for all systems so that I can run
along and get on with writing, reading and creating.
Surely, there could be some thanks for that.
But no. I wanted to purchase Microsoft Publisher because,
having tried alternatives to no avail, I needed a desktop publisher. I am
fortunate in that I have more than one or two computers in the house. In fact,
there are five.
Now I am setting myself up in business and I would really
like to be able to design something on my laptop and then print it off on the
computer. I have not connected my laptop to the printer. So the only way of
getting my business cards printed is to transfer them to the computer that is
connected to the printer. Only I cannot do that because that computer does not
have the required software.
I bought the Microsoft product but it only has ONE license.
One license for ONE machine. Not ONE license for a household or a business.
How fair is that? So in order for myself, my business
partner and my desktop computer to have access to this all important piece of
software, I have to pay £300.
It’s not fair.
The only consolation is that at least Bill Gates is
altruistic and pumping considerable amounts of money back to where it is needed
to educate and nurture the lives of those less fortunate through the Bill and
Melinda Gates Foundation
Right, that is the whine out of the way.
Now to something more positive, honestly.
The last few weeks, I have been somewhat miserable. That is
an understatement. I have been feeling incredibly bereft, lost, voiceless,
paralysed.
It happens sometimes. It happens in a moment, and it
lingers, and then it is gone only to return when you least expect it, sometimes
to such an extent that it pierces dramatically into your mind and your heart,
painfully.
It hurts. I hurt. Such a simple word; hurt.
It is so strange. I love music. My life without music really
would be bereft. Music, like other essential things in life, gives me a lift
that I cannot really explain. It hits a nerve, a feeling. It fills my soul with
every intonation and every beat. Isn’t it a marvel that there are only a
certain amount of musical notes, and yet you get this huge array of sounds –
the magnitude and variety of which is almost inexplicable.
How can you get such different sounds from essentially
twelve notes? I have music books stacked on my shelves inviting me to play all
sorts of different music. I have more shelves filled with CDs that have their
own mark, their own form of creativity with these twelve notes arranged in so
many different ways.
But it is not just twelve notes. It is the combination of
those twelve notes into chords (36), into melodies, all kinds of
juxtapositions. And then there are all the different musical instruments
putting different sounds into our ears, and then there is the combination of
the instruments; the harmony of the sax and the guitar, with the emphasis of
the drum beat that all combine with the strength of a leading voice.
Bloody marvellous.
It is mind- blowing when you really sit down and think of
the simplicity and the ultimate, incredible complexity of composition.
With songs, there is the addition of lyrics to consider.
Language is similar to music composition. We have twenty six
characters in our alphabet that make up millions and millions of words, in
different languages across the globe.
Arranging these words to match music provides even more
combinations.
Is it infinite?
A few weeks ago, I listened to a really interesting story
about plagiarism
It featured the case of George Harrison’s “My Sweet Lord”
and its similarities with “He’s So Fine”
Yes, it sometimes happens that there are similarities
between songs, and often the artists may not even realize that they are plagiarizing
because the music that they might have heard sometimes creeps into our being
almost without trace. Such is the subliminal power of that combination.
But returning to music, and how it affects me.
There are times when the effect of music is so dramatic that
I can not physically bear to listen to it. Is that a strange statement for
someone who feels a desperate need for music in her life? It is the same with
other joys. I cannot even begin to think about them when I am feeling so
bereft, and yet it is precisely these essentials in life that would make me
feel so much more complete.
Music affects me, hugely.
Last night, I sat in a bar and listened to live music and I
felt more myself than I had done in months. It was an amalgamation of things,
and it certainly did not mean that everything was perfectly wonderful in my
life, but for that moment, I was lost in the music – the brilliance of a few
men standing on a stage and creating the most excessively comforting sounds
from their guitars, harps, drums and voice –not forgetting the wonderful clear
sound from the female vocalist.
But music does sometimes make me want to roll up in a ball
and weep, not always in a sad way. Sometimes, I am just completely overwhelmed
by the whole magnificence of it all. It takes my breath away. I am speechless
in admiration for these wonderful human beings who have given the rest of us so
much without realizing precisely what they are giving.
So, for many months, music has been missing in my life, and
I have missed it. I have avoided it. It is a shared love that has felt unshared
recently. And I have resented that.
But music is also so uplifting and personally, I think it is
vital to the wellbeing of everyone who has the physical capacity to listen.
I have seen my children respond to music in such an amazing
way too. I love hearing my son waking up and within minutes of doing so, he has
broken out into song. The rest of the family are not so delighted by this, but
isn’t this how we should start every day – full of music, and today, full of
sunshine too.
Right now, I want to scream from every corner of the room to
anyone who is prepared to listen that I need music and other joys in my life. I
am going to re-embrace them all given half the chance but for now, I am reveling
in my new technology that allows me to add a Spotify account onto my television.
I have been blasted with Lennie, George x3, Bruce, Eric and various others this
morning; different sounds, different languages, different tunes, different
instruments, different words –all combining to make my heart miss a beat and
then retrieve it with a slow-down and meditation on the most perfect things in
life.
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