When Spring Sounds Like Music
Years ago, I wrote a paper about programmatic music and how Antonio Vivaldi tried to turn seasons into sound.
Birdsong.
Movement.
Light returning (it did today).
I analysed it with statistics and theory. Explain why it worked.
What I didn’t realise then is that spring isn’t something you understand.
It’s something you feel.
This morning, early signs of spring light entered the room during yoga at 7am. Quiet. Unforced. Then again at 8am, out on a run with friends.
And without thinking too much about it, my mood lifts.
If you’re interested, the academic paper is here:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22851380/
BW, Leigh
Classical music buffs may scoff at Erik Satie and his “chair music,” and the whole panoply of BGM which, at its worst, is ear candy - the difference between Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and Godiva straight from Brussels itself.
But on a related note (no pun intended), I’ve been working on my tax prep and listening to Antonio Carlos Jobim’s “Wave” album a lot when I do so. The music has been getting me through the number-crunching. It calms me and makes it more tolerable. And the album cover has what is now considered to be one of the best designs ever - a slightly polarized shot of a giraffe in gallop across a clear plain. What it has to do with Brazil is anyone’s guess - but the music, and that incredible cover, makes things just that much brighter.