On Music and Milieu

I am a note. I am singular. I am one of many. Alone, I seem insignificant. I am measured by time, relate to others around me and identify myself by initials and symbols. Those who come before and after me define my mood, my milieu, my significance. Within my defined space, I can be melodramatic, light and airy, or understated. Emotions are evoked by my presence or absence, whether by design or chance.

Located strategically, I am part of song but even alone, in silence, I exist. If I am taken out of context, I am still a note - I still disturb the air with sound. If my place changes or if am put in a different position, I will not become insignificant but instead my interactions will signify something different. Other’s perceptions of me are not universal. Distasteful to some, I am revered by others. Even as my creator chose me and positioned me in this space, I seek out and am sought out by others like me. Together, we create a whole whose melody changes with the space we occupy.

The time and space in which I am played is influential upon my meaning. Once I sounded my voice at what seemed to be an appropriate time, but even as the situation seemed necessary to one, it disturbed others. Take for instance, the love of classical music by one Alex DeLarge of A Clockwork Orange. The music he once loved and which embodied his feelings of free will - albeit violent in its materialization - changed its tone once the time and space in which it was heard was violent towards him. Even his appreciation for the lighthearted love song, “Singin’ in the Rain” turned sour as his milieu changed. What was once lovely to him was now a source of fear. His physical location and body had not changed, nor had the notes themselves, but it was the atmosphere which discernibly slipped from gratification to grief.

If you put me in another place, the symbols that define me do not change. Yet, the relationship between me and my surroundings transform my identity. Even in the far end of silence, there are notes. It may be a collection of notes - a collective silence - waiting for a moment to be recognized, signified. It may be a memory that holds a note for safekeeping to be reawakened in deliberate pleasure. It may be a time in which I am waiting to be played in the future, or a place in which to create new meaning and significance to the silence I am breaking.

Poet Oliver Wendell Holmes once said “the best of a book is not the thought which it contains, but the thought which it suggests; just as the charm of music dwells not in the tones but in the echoes of our hearts.” I echo every note that has come before me. I am a remnant of the formations that signify my individual presence in the very space that I form, shape, and even suggest thought and communication. I am a note. Alone, I am singular. With many, I am a song.