the note is the word

I find so many moments in life marked not by words but rather songs. I learned to read and play music the same year I learned to write my name. I know that linking songs to memories is not unique to me or musicians as a class: it is only unique in that a musician not only hears the memory, a musician expresses or speaks the language that way as well. The same applies to other fields, no doubt. For me, music is a second language. Sometimes I want to communicate something to someone and words seem terribly insufficient. Afterwards, I wish I could have said, or sent them or played them a certain song.



How am I? How do I feel about you? How was my day? I can try to describe it, but really what I meant was Shumann's Davidsbundler Op.6, No. 2.



Or certain moments, I hear something, and I have to run to my sheet music and find it, that perfect way of describing what I feel. There is no word. The note is the word.



Somehow this all comes back to the whole Benjamin/Pure Language thing. Translation...the true meaning emerging from multiple translations. I find the pitfalls of communication and language fascinating, maddening, damn near tragic and yet absolutely delightful. Moments of complete understanding are so rare. Getting there? Damn. I guess that's the stuff.