While waiting for my next appointment, I heard a man whistle.
He carried a tune while being oblivious to outsiders. Maybe he just try to pass the time in between classes.
Maybe we should whistle too. We are all passing the time.
Some of us are doing time.
Stephen Hawking wishes he could hear his own voice.
The world-renown scientist himself needs help from technology.
We invented musical instruments: flute, drum, vuvuzela etc… to carry the sound, and use microphones to amplify it.
An I-Pad screen can now be used as a karaoke screen.
Music stand should now be reshaped to mount I-pads. It would then be called the I-stand.
I stand and sing from an I-stand.
Neil Young got inspired by looking at an old man on the farm “Old man looks at my life…”
The old farmer was just content going about his farming business (perspiration) while Young found inspiration.
Now, it’s Neil’s turn to grow old.
“I have been to Redwood, I have been to Hollywood…looking for a heart of gold and I am growing old” (at 66, he just released a new album).
So it is Christmas, what have you done?
We “use” artists when we need them: late at night, at year-end celebration and in-between classes.
Then we junk the 8-tracks, cassettes, CD‘s, or give them to Goodwill.
Then we move on to YouTube.
I will thank them on all of our behalf then.
Where would we be if not for the Abba who put “Happy New Year” on the musical map!
Music itself evolves with time. Just ask our faculty man who whistles the lonely tune.
By hearing his own tune, he perhaps feels less lonely, because the environment sends feedback with analog precision.
Man and music: both need each other to be complete. No wonder Tina Turner does it differently every time she sings her signature “Proud Mary“. Audience participation does make a difference: their feedback (while on their feet dancing) helps spin her interpretation of the song.
I know during that school break, with me there waiting for my appointment, the man who whistles was probably aware there were more than one person in that lounge. His energy certainly was boosted because his lonely sound impacted beyond the lonely walls of his own soul. Happy is he who wakes up to the sound of music.
Thang Nguyen 555 