April 1st, 2010
In Honor of National Poetry Month, I’m sharing a poem that my friend Al Norton read at OpenStage a few years ago. If you’re a musician, I think you’ll particularly understand the sentiment. It’s a beautiful poem about music and music making.
A LESSON IN MUSIC
by Alastair Reid
Play the tune again: but this time
with more regard for the movement at the source of it
and less attention to time. Time falls
curiously in the course of it.
Play the tune again: not watching
your fingering, but forgetting, letting flow
the sound till it surrounds you. Do not count
or even think. Let go.
Play the tune again: but try to be
nobody, nothing, as though the pace
of the sound were your heart beating, as though
the music were your face.
Play the tune again: It should be easier
to think less every time of the notes, of the measure.
It is all an arrangement of silence. Be silent, and then
play it for your pleasure.
Play the tune again: and this time when it ends,
do not ask me what I think. Feel what is happening
strangely in the room as the sound glooms over
you, me, everything.
Now, play the tune again.
from Weathering by Alastair Reid (Canongate Publishing, 17 Jeffrey Street, Edinburgh EH1 1DR; 1978).
This is wonderful – speaks to more than just musicians.
I love it too!
(one question, is the last line “gloom” over or “loom” over? ^_^
Here’s a wonderful blessing/poem from John O’Donahue. A poem trade!
http://www.panhala.net/Archive/A_Blessing.html
Checked all my sources and “glooms” is the right word. Seems strange for a word that usually has negative associations, but thats probably why we need poets – to make us think on subtlety and broaden our associations. He seems to be asking us to experience both the sound and the silence the music brings.
I like investigation. And yes, I think gloom indeed adds to the reading. A gloom can be a twilight, or a gloaming, and though it tends to add a more somber tone, and perhaps indicates that the piece the poet is repeating might be one in a minor key, it adds a depth to our sense of the practice he’s writing about. And I love your comment about experiencing both the sound and the silence. BE. HERE. NOW.
Thanks for this. I was actually looking for a recording of Alastair reciting or reading his poem. I’ve heard it a couple times on our classical station and it’s sublime. Anyone know if it’s available?
I’d like to give it to my daughters.
I think a recording the poem read by Reid is available on a CD titled “Child’s Song” by Alastair Reid and Bill Crofut.
Hello
Thanks for posting this poem. I have just been reading some Reid (…) and have linked to this page.