1/7/2011 8:34

Music

I wake up in the morning with a song running through my head. I clean my floors with a song running through my head. I walk the dog with a song running through my head. This only gets annoying if it is the same song day after day. The human mind may need to have a song running in order to function.

I say "a song" but the particular aspect that I'm considering is the rhythm. What roles the melody and harmony have is beyond me. Good drummers are a legitimate target of envy because they have rhythms flowing through their bodies all the time (and not because they annoy others by expressing those rhythms throughout the day). The reality is that we all have rhythms flowing through our bodies all of the time. We talk, breath, and sleep in rhythm. We can't help it. The evidence suggests that our minds may be the rhythms of our brains -- not the brain but the rhythm, the patterns of activity in the brain.

There is rhythm within the cells of our bodies, rhythm in the flow of blood, rhythm in muscle contractions, rhythm in our brains. There is rhythm in our music, rhythm in our speech, rhythm in our work schedule, rhythm in songs. In important ways, rhythm is what we are.

No doubt there are more and less effective ways to play with rhythm in the actual reality game, although I'm not prepared just yet to lay out what plays make better use of the rhythms that we are. I'm sure that a rhythmless life -- living in a way that minimizes the rhythms of life -- would be an ineffective life. Rhythm is a fundamental gift and reality of which an effective player makes good use.

Yet I remain uncertain just how best to use the repeating rhythm which is running through my mind this morning. I have no method of writing down the rhythm directly, so I need to share the pattern through the associated words.

Oh, orange and grapefruit, / Oh, orange and grapefruit, / Oh, orange and grapefruit, / And once in a while a lime.