Reverberations

Even the creatures feel the innate unity of nature, and echo that sense in their song. There is no orchestration on Earth which can equal the natural, effortless and totally expressive music of the wilds. As one sees the landscape, one hears its meaning and its place to the creatures who inhabit it. Their loving sounds reverberate endlessly, as if from Heaven a chorus visits of invisible yet omnipresent, indeed omniscient, worth. Who can pretend to achieve this momentous expression of harmony and peace, of love and appreciation for life, which the insects, birds and frogs make their total communication to the world around, to each other. The only interpretation available to the witness of such natural wonder in music is a greeting of God somehow. Maybe after some time has passed could a composer regroup, and search for an expression of the afterimage left by the sonorous composers of the natural realm, not to mention the mighty trees and graceful grasses of the field whose movements in the breezes may found the mode of a gentle drone in and through it all. Or the gurgling sounds of a little brook, the lapping ashore of a stately lake, the rushing thunder of a mighty waterfall by the cliffs. For reverberations of the truth of music quite happenstantial to a moment in a forest, say, or on a mountainside on a summer's day, or by a placid pond at sunset, will forever feed the inspiration and forever kindle the aspiration of a musician who wishes to reflect the creation in the language of music. Nature is for this composer the supreme teacher of the sublime wonder of God, of the maker, of the material world about us.
Nature teaches 'what is', to the inquirer who seeks the greater venue only for the asking. That greater picture is an inspirational glimpse of all that transcends the duality of the relative world in which we live. How can simple creatures be entrusted with such profound language and communicate to us such remarkable awareness of their world, which is ours alike? To humble oneself to this nature's symphony will mold an understanding of the world itself and one's place and even purpose in it, yet, the creatures seem so simple. They are not simple, they are in universal harmony with us and with the world. Their sounds communicate that fact and that reality to us. We should honor it. And if we honor it, then their word to us, though not in our direct linguistic form, will teach us to think differently of life and of self and of truth, for their word will abound in our thoughts and deeds like so may reverberating, interconnected notes and melodious greetings. What finer education unto the lessons of music, wherein there is no visible or named director, no wand awave to summon it all. It is just there, and unmatchable in its harmonies and waves of rhythms and calls and answers, replete with counterpoint and ineffable melody.
Soft the voices of the creatures, and loud the message of the world for what it is to those with the fitness to survive in it. Imagine, then, the answer of the humankind observer to this nature's symphony, whose religious heart expands into the beauty of their calls, and their simple locale yet so extended into the further reach of the realm of music.
Similarly, can the devotee of music who becomes acquainted with classical works find the unique power of music to lend to the mind and emotional set a reverberating peace and realization of happiness itself. It is the perfection of classical music which appeals to the ear held in contemplative ardor to its instruction, for this music will instruct, just as the sounds of a rain forest community of creatures will tell the day of that ecological niche. Classical music will make happiness in the air, a happiness which knows its correlate as the direct happiness which is the nature of the self. And that is how it enlightens, indeed, emboldens the one who listens and learns it, to believe in a happy day, even a better life. For that is the power of knowledge of the self, to know, and to know enough to seek to know, a better day; and even though the one who listens cannot compose, perhaps, or play an instrument at all, still the message is received, and all the more vital in importance will it be once the message of music is truly integrated into the cognizing mind. For the listeners, the devotees of music, are at the mercy of those who write.
This is the seemingly introspective route any composer takes in the process of learning music composition, and this composer describes that route much as a guide to any who might desire a greater appreciation of music. The gift of the one who composes for others is great in the sense that the greater balance of work is achieved by the one whose insights and analyses are hard-won, so that it is much easier to study music as one who sits and listens to it. And all throughout the demanding onslaught of unrelenting inspiration and ideation in a mad moment of creating a piece, does the composer speak to the world, just as the creatures sing in the world about us. The driving need to make a statement is my life's desire, a statement to you the people, much as the creatures state their survivor's watch among themselves for all the world to hear.
May you enjoy my statement to you, for it is music to the ears. Simply music.
Composer,
Marilynn Stark