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Music Is
by William Parker
Music is the abysmal rainbow that
bridges endless galaxies. It is the waterfall flowing through the
desert, the mother, the offspring, the ointment, the foot and hand of
the wind. All of nature is music: the many colored skies, space and
planets.
Music is every wondrous canyon in a
miracle’s dream. Music is evolution, the seed of change. Music
existed and exists with or without human beings.
No race invented music.
Music is a form of energy, like the
sun. Music is the voice through which spirits speak, using a language
that is beyond words, a music that is beyond notes. Music informs us
with a reality that is scented with the eternal. Music is the tireless
swan knitting landscapes of hope. Music is the cry of life and death
at birth and conception, the heart beat, the pulse, the healer and the
healed, the color portrait, the magical stone and the magical mists
living side by side. Music is the chirping of birds; is the grass
beneath the cracked shells.
Music is dance and the dancer. It is
poetry and the poet. Music is all children. Music is hot cornbread.
Music is the kindness one finds in a crayon drawing. Music is wood
touching word. Imagine a doorbell made of light. Imagine the house
that we would enter if we rang that bell.
Music is the rhythm of butterflies.
Music is hungry stomachs being filled. Music is justice. Music is blue
water, blue whales, and blue cornmeal.
Music passes through some while
others reject the image. The best music teacher is an oak tree. Music
cannot be taught. Music is alive. Music is a pasture of yellow grass
6-foot tall.
Music tolls from the earth and lands
on the sky of another universe. Music is drone over the Ganges.
Music is a snowflake floating on the
ocean.
Music is silence. There is no music
in capitalism and imperialism. Music is the answer and the question.
Particles of music cannot be measured by scientific instruments. Music
vibrates. Not all music vibrates at the same rate. Music is radiant.
The blessing, the understanding, the fundamental eye revealing the
surrender in the realm of brightness. Music sometimes manifests itself
as sound.
Music’s only wish is the
well-being of all human beings. Music exists to feed the spirit. Music
is no war, not ever, for any reason.
Music is the fertilizer and the
seed. Every second we live, music is dying for us. Music will save the
day. Music must save the day. Music is the mother to the motherless,
father to the fatherless. Music is home to the homeless. Dance music,
wedding music, funeral music, march music, waltz music, wood music,
steel music, voice music, tree music, ocean music, soil music, baking
bread music, pastoral music, union music, trance music, religious
music, perpendicular music, circle music, square music, Zion music,
Shinto music, Buddha music, Islamic music, Hindu music, Winti music,
music for Damballah, Erzulie, Ogun, Ghede, Asacca music for
Quetzalcoatl, for the Adena Hopewell, music for the Red Paint people,
music to make the moon laugh and cause the sun to turn blue. Music is
the incubation of joy. A symbol of music is Kokopelli, the hump-back
flute player...
Through music life is altered. This
energy, if visible, might resemble bands of light stretched across
fields of flowing ash going past layers of infinite habitation. The
cry of praise, the memory, the entrance to the fire, oupas chanting.
The effect pulls on gravity.
Music is the lasting response, the
elixir. Music is nothing; music is everything. There is more music in
a baby’s smile than in a thousand symphony orchestras. Music lives
in the flute mountains that are made of melted diamonds. We drink
them. Our eyes sparkle like petals of a black rose. Music to plant
beans, to plant corn. Music the burning throne, the prodigal daughter,
and rain cloud over the profound branches.
William Parker is one of the
leading bass players, composers and group leaders in jazz and free
music today. He can be heard on CD’s with his groups "In Order
to Survive" and "Little Huey Creative Music Orchestra",
and on dozens of CD’s with other musicians. "Music Is" is
taken from Sound Journal a collection of writings by William
Parker. He lives in New York City.
This article was published in New Renaissance,
Volume 9, No. 1, issue 27 and this page was posted on the web
on August 18, 1999.
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