Time and Music

I’ve been thinking about time over this weekend.  My wife and I watched the movie, “Arrival”, and it got me thinking about time.  Time is a frequent subject in science fiction and even religion and spirituality.  From science we learn that time is not constant, and in science fiction we often see time travel and all its complications as something to explore.  In religion and spirituality we come across the idea that in other realms there is no time - that all time happens in the same instant.  The movie we saw played with that idea a little bit.  The alien written language in the story is not linear like our language is, and so it is without time.  This influences how the characters interact with time.  What we can know in this life is that we mainly experience the very moment we are in right now.  I wrote about this a while ago in a way - talking about tomorrow, today, and yesterday.  When talking about only the moment we are in though, I find music fascinating.  Music is involved with many things - melody, harmony, rhythm, etc.  Rhythm is the main musical thing that deals with time, and music allows us to play with rhythm to the finest degree.  You can play ahead of the beat and so the moment of time or even behind the beat.  You can syncopate the melody and harmony.  The beat can make us anticipate and that anticipation is a huge motivator in how we experience time.  When playing with other musicians you can feel the music together in a symbiosis that has to be felt to be believed.  I find it endlessly fascinating to think about the permutations of this, and getting to make music and play with time is one of the true joys of my life.

What have I been up to?

Friday at Magpies was a blast!  Some my regulars were out of town or unable to make it, but I had a bunch of new faces and other friends who helped make it a stellar night.  I brought down a half dozen guitars including a couple nylon-string guitars I haven’t played in some time which added a completely different tone to the night.

What's up this week?

Saturday 11-2 I’m playing for the First Christian Church Valentine’s Spaghetti Dinner in Cañon City again.  This is a fundraiser for several local non-profit agencies, so it’s a really great event that helps the community.  Come on out if you can for some great food and romantic tunes!  I’m not certain of the price.  Last year it was $7 adults, and $4 ages 12 and under.

What’s on the horizon?

I’m tentatively planning to do online concerts on concertwindow.com once a month on the first Sunday evening.  I’m not sure if I’ll start in March or April.  I’ll be out of town in March for my niece’s birthday, so I may do a concert from there if they’d like it.  Otherwise it’ll be April to start.  I’ll let you know soon.

That’s it for this week.

Best always,

Tom

Details this week:

Who:  Tom Munch
What:  singing and playing a Valentine’s spaghetti dinner fundraiser
When:  Saturday, Feb 25, 11 am - 2 pm
Where:  First Christian Church, 320 N 16th St, Cañon City (719) 275-9644