Yesterday, we had a recital for one of my boys. Susy was off to a basketball game with our youngest, so I got recital duty.
I love listening to my son play music. LOVE it! On a beautiful Saturday Spring day, however, I don’t have the same patience and desire to hear other kids play their instruments. I know. Not very nice.
Don’t get me wrong. They all played beautifully. It was just not where I would have “chosen” to be.
The moment I thought, “I wish I wasn’t here” I could feel some disharmony. You get twitchy, a little short tempered, a little less nice.
Then, I thought, ok… I am here… so enjoy it.
Naturally, I thought of HARMONY.
Here we were… young children learning to play music. Learning to play one note after the other to make beautiful music.
And, my mind started wondering…
First, I remembered the one recital that I had about 1,000 years ago. I remember the nerves. I actually sang the song “Feelings” while playing the guitar. I remember my guitar teacher always encouraging me to sing… he said it was because he said I had a nice voice, but I think in reality it was that my voice was good “RELATIVE” to my guitar playing, and my singing probably made it harder to hear my chords… ;-)
I thought about harmony – about moving from “wishing I was somewhere else” to being grateful for the moment. I wanted to be empathetic to the kids who were probably a little nervous for their performance.
I thought to myself… nobody sang today… and then I thought, nobody else sang back 1,000 years ago when I did my recital. I must have been horrible at the guitar….
BUT…
What if the concept of HARMONY in LIFE was embraced as music is with our children?
What if from an early age, we learned that every moment we have a chance to create harmony or disharmony? What if we learned that outright as a class?
How would we be different?
As I listened to these kids, that are entering adulthood play, I was transported.
What if we could truly HEAR the harmony of our lives? What if everytime we said something unkind, or close minded, or particularly selfish we HEARD it, like we hear the wrong note played?
I am convinced that we feel those disharmonic notes in life… for most of us, its subconscious… its that ugly feeling, that distant feeling, that scary feeling, that angry feeling, that disconcerting feeling, that defensive feeling when someone does something to us or says something to us that we don’t want to hear… at least not in that way.
What if we could hear the HARMONY or DISHARMONY of our actions…
Then, we could be more aware… Then, we could focus on our music.
I thought to myself, its not just knowing the right note to play or the right thing to say. It’s being able to actually play it.
And even if we play just the right note, you can play it a little early or a little late… you can transition into it smoothly or abruptly… you can play it too soft or too loud… HARMONY is not just about playing the right note… there is a mastery to playing the right moment.
The more you practice, the more you play, the more beautiful the sound… the more beautiful the music.
Sure, people have some God given abilities for playing instruments… but the correlation is fairly clear. The more you practice… the better you sound.
So, I sat there listening to 12 boys and girls make beautiful music.
I sat there listening to kids make music, listening to them struggle at times to play the right note, and sometimes playing the right note but in an awkward way…
And, I smiled… thinking that so much of my days and my weeks are spent watching myself and those around me try to make harmony happen…
Then there was the whole experience of students playing music with accompaniment and the concept of harmony between people opened up. It’s harder to achieve harmony with two, then it is with one. But, if you can’t play the right note for harmony on your own, you will never reach it in a duet.
Then there was the concept that the better we become at playing our instrument, the more complicated the music becomes. So, when you hear the wrong note being played, sometimes its not an issue of an ungifted musician but rather the reality of a complicated sequence.
I was living the metaphor ;-)
Imagine a world where the harmony of our minds, and our relationships was as clearly heard as a 14 year old’s missed note…
In the recital of life, we feel the harmony and the disharmony in the moment. Some of us are listening for it, others are just blowing into the mouthpiece and pushing the valves unaware of the music they are making…
I started the recital in disharmony, “wishing” I was perhaps somewhere else. I settled into the moment. I enjoyed hearing my son play, and various other gifted young musicians… and I got lost in the thought of music and harmony and the possibilities of a more conscious and mindful world.
Yours in the practice of harmony… dressed up for life’s recital.
Nestor