How to Hear Music as Metaphor for Life
What can we learn from music beyond its background to our busyness, rhythm for dancing, or lyrics that express our emotions? This article reflects on music as metaphor for life.
Think of any piece of music that you enjoy. It doesn’t matter if it is a symphony, rock and roll, or folk music. Let the memory of it play through your mind for a minute.
What happens if you increase the playback speed of this music to double time and eliminate all percussion, pauses, and dynamics?
That which was created to be slow, like an Irish air on a soulful violin will never sound right played as punk rock. And the Washington Post March without a beat becomes mere noise.
Music as metaphor teaches us about life. We may or may not be awake to things like rhythm, melody, dissonance, lyrics, or whether life has been echoing as a single oboe, or a full marching band. But these musical qualities orchestrate our entire day.
Personal Inner Music as Metaphor
What is the rhythm in your inner world when you awaken? Are there lyrics filling your heart as you shower?
Perhaps there is literal birdsong to welcome you from outside. What is the tempo of your heart at this moment?
During your day are you marching with John Philip Sousa, or dancing a mamba with maracas?
Or perhaps your inner spaces are filled with ambient music— no melody or rhythm per se, but gentle flowing sounds merging and diverging as the clock turns a full cycle. Are you beginning to think of music as metaphor?
Feeling changes in your body
To think of music as a metaphor ask what your body is feeling as you wind down from your day? Do you feel yourself leaning into a lullaby or fighting the dissonance of Stravinsky?
What has the rhythm of your day been? Off-beat? Dragging? Rapid?
I recently responded to some simultaneous external factors including a heatwave, a Covid booster, and a feeling of overwhelm, by going horizontal.
For three days.
Time flowed like the Mississippi River and the only melody in my body was a lullaby and some soft jazz without a rigid beat.
No lyrics. Only humming. In the stillness, I sometimes heard songbirds softly chirping outside my open window. And long pauses of silence.
If my life were a play, this would have been Act One, setting the scene for what was to come next.
What’s your rhythm?
Today I hear drumbeats. African rhythm… or would that be my heart as it begins to remember my plans and goals that were laid aside during that extended pause.
Most likely it is a response to getting out for some exercise on a beautiful day.
I often find myself overriding a natural rest with a set of drums that drive me forward to do more, be more, and get more.
Life as a musical instrument
Our lives by themselves are musical instruments.
Sometimes I go forth like a blaring brass trumpet, setting a pace with distinct accents and downbeats, and other times I am more like a flute—a bit airy and unassuming but worthy of listening to for an occasional descant when I am least expecting it.
I want to remember to follow the conductor and be prepared to pause in order for this day to make sense.
I need some rhythm, but a soft gentle pace set by a muted tympani would be better than a demanding snare drum.
If you perceive the Universe (God, Nature, Mystery) as a composer/conductor, what is the music that is in your world right now? Is there a ‘battle of bands’ going on inside or are you in a place of anticipatory silence before the concert begins?
If the Composer were writing a score that included you, in what section would you be placed? Strings who carry the melody? Drums who provide rhythm? A single bassoon to provide a unique edgy counterbalance to the rest of the composition?
When I sit in contemplation of my life as music I realize I am only a note in the grand symphony of creation. But I want my note to be in tune, on time, and resting when needed.
Together with a Divine Composer, I want to resonate with your note and the note of my neighbor and the note of each foreigner, and yes, even the notes of every tree and flower in the forest, creatures of land, sea, and air together with choruses of angels and unseen spirits.
Together we are a grand symphony called creation.
[Photo credits from Unsplash: guitar-by-jefferson-santos; sound-and-color-by-bruno-emmanuelle; waking-woman-by-bruce-mars; Mississippi-River-by-justin-wilkens; child-drumming-by-yoel-winkler; man-with-flute-jyotirmoy-gupta; creation-by-robert-koorenny]
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