The Sunday Poem: Diminuendo

Our control over so much of our musical performance is indirect. The subtleties can be great — a slight variation in the pace of a melody, a minor variation in the force with which we tap or pull or blow. In those gaps lies artistry. The difference between bowing one way or another on a violin; a fraction of an inch’s difference in how we rest our foot upon the piano’s pedal.

Without this, the music lacks humanity. But sound lacks humanity, intrinsically. Sound is oscillation. We are shaping vibrations in the air much like we might plane wood, to give the arched back of a chair a smoother curve. In the end, is it the grain of the wood we admire, or its shaping? Is it the majesty of harmony built into nature, or is it the humanity we see through the gaps in the intervals?

Diminuendo

Suppose you plucked a string,
And made the silly sound thing
Play a tune and learn to sing.

Suppose you pulled it strong,
Yanked the note loud and long
Until it barely knew its song.

Suppose you made it snap and growl,
Teased it till it spat and howled,
Coaxed it as it sank and cowled.

Would you think you had the credit?
It was the string that sounded — bled it.
It wasn’t you who said it.

We shape the sound through pressure
And treat the music as our leisure
And let it flow through its own measures.

We rarely see it stand alone,
The music without a player’s tone,
The dots and dashes fully grown.

Suppose you plucked a string,
Suppose you pulled it strong,
Suppose you made it snap and growl,
Dots and dashes fully grown.
Would you think you had the credit?
It was the string that shone.
Or was it you that said it?