SIGNIFICANT SILENCES

“A note of music gains significance from the silence on either side.”

 - Anne Morrow Lindbergh

For me both silence and repetition are truly essential in great music. Perhaps the musical composers who best understood both of these aspects were Bach, Beethoven and Schubert.

I especially appreciate a piece by Bach called Siciliano from Flute Sonata No 2 in E flat major. I’ve played it many times on my violin, and each time there is just the right length of silence frequently in the melody so that I have a moment to think back on how beautiful those few earlier measures were. I then look forward to the next theme. Beethoven was also skilled at creating just the right silences and repetitions. As Jeremy Siepmann, author of “Beethoven: His Life and Music” put it amusingly, “His silences often have the impact of hammer blows.”

Then there are pauses of optional length. For instance, I still remember back in my early days in the Battle Creek Symphony when we were working on Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. In that case, our conductor back then, William Stein, had to decide just how long we should wait in silence after playing GGGEb before going on to FFFD. He also thought hard about how long to wait after FFFD before repeating the first four notes and then going on to AbAbAbGEbEbEbC.

This kind of subtlety is tricky, for, as Stein said to us, he didn’t want to rush into the next part of the melody before people have fully taken in the first theme, but on the other hand he didn’t want to lose the powerful connection that exists between these two unforgettable beginning themes.

Then there is the opening of Beethoven's Third Symphony: just two chords, separated, once again, by silence. As Stein puts it, “Nobody had ever begun a symphony that way before.”

Another famous and beautiful example is Schubert’s “Ave Maria,” where the simple beginning theme, “CBCEDC” is repeated five times in six minutes and where there are pauses between every few measures. I recommend that you listen on YouTube to a performance of it by one of the world’s greatest singers, Maria Callas.

In order to be appreciated, however, both pauses and repetitions obviously have to be part of a melody. I disagree with people who actually praise John Cage’s “4 Minutes and 33 Seconds,” which he created back in 1952. There has been a performance, which you can see on YouTube, by a full symphony supposedly playing this work. They are really doing nothing at all, for the whole work is totally silent.

After that orchestra ends the work exactly 4 minutes and 33 seconds later, the audience amazingly claps loudly and stands up to congratulate the composer, Cage, the conductor and the symphony.

Apparently this work was debuted outdoors in Tanglewood so there were probably more interesting sounds there than in the symphony hall.

Even so, many music lovers did not like the work, and it affected Cage’s reputation negatively. As one man put it so well, It “Has to be the worst piece of music I have never heard.”

All of this business of silence and repetition may seem like an obvious aspect of music, but composers like Bach, Beethoven and Schubert knew instinctively how to use those techniques to create true masterpieces.

Good return of teaching investment

One of the most rewarding gifts of teaching is having a student from the past get back in touch with you simply to thank you for your positive influence upon his or her life.

When Barry Cannon called me out of the blue, after nearly 30 years, to express his appreciation, I could still picture him as a witty, fun, African American male I really enjoyed having in my classes.

He was one of six children in a low-income family from Alabama who had all moved to Detroit when he was only three years old. His loving father died on the day of his 8th grade graduation, but hard as it was, he still attended the ceremony.

He said he could easily have failed in high school and had many friends who did fail because they had what he called “negative activities associated with growing up in a poor urban environment.”

He entered high school in the fall of 1979 and described himself as “bright eyed and bushy tailed,” and he excelled academically as well as athletically.

When he came to Olivet College in 1983, however, he had a much harder time. As he put it, “I had no idea of the focus and dedication it would take to become a successful student beyond high school," and by the end of his first semester, he almost had to leave.

As he explained it, “I believe the freedom of being on my own for the first time overwhelmed me, leading to my becoming academically ineligible to play sports and on academic as well as behavior probation.”

Another issue was that he said he had a difficult time adjusting to coming from a mostly African American high school to a predominantly Caucasian college

But instead of giving up, Barry decided at the end of that semester to change his ways. He says he was inspired by two helpful quotes from his parents: “Failure to prepare, is preparing to fail,” and “You won’t rise to low expectations.”

Here’s the passage from him on his email that made me want to write this column. “It was during this low point that I met a wonderful instructor, Dr. Linda Jo Scott, who captured my attention in a way unlike any other. She had a charming and magnetic personality. I truly felt that she cared and wanted to see me succeed. She was always available for assistance, always had kind words of encouragement.”

The next seven semesters of his time at Olivet College were fruitful, however, and though he had to take twenty credit hours at one point to make up for the botched freshmen first semester, he was able to graduate with his classmates in May, 1987 with a major in Sociology and a minor in Physical Education.

Barry eventually received a Double Master’s Teaching Degree with a certification in English and Social Sciences and an Educational Specialists Degree in Educational Administration, and he now has 40 hours towards a Doctorate in Education.

I was proud to learn that he has been teaching English, which was my field, as well as serving as the Athletic Director at Martin Luther King Jr. High School in Detroit for 25 years--and with perfect attendance for all of those years.

It seems fitting to end this column with the words of my impressive student which he gave for an article about him by the Detroit Free Press: “I’m just a vessel. God uses me to impact children.”

Alan Alda's Full Life

“Funny people want to be in a pleasant frequency with you. It’s like you are both tuned into the same thing, like you’re dancing together. And through that funniness, the two of you can share a moment of pleasure together that you can’t get any other way.”

Alan Alda

Alan Alda is a remarkably witty, talented and likable fellow who has spent his life doing a series of memorable, worthwhile and enjoyable activities. He is now 78 but has certainly not retired--or even slowed down, it would seem.

According to Wikipedia, “He is currently a Visiting Professor at the State University of New York at Stony Brook School of Journalism and a member of the advisory board of The Center for Communicating Science and the Future of Life Institute. He serves on the board of the World Science Festival and is a judge for Math-O-Vision.”

I was first impressed and delighted with him in his role as “Hawkeye” (Benjamin Franklin) Pierce in the famous, 11-year, 256-episode series, M*A*S*H. I was teaching in South Korea back in 1975-6, and that story of the Korean War was one of the few programs on television there that was in the English language.

Alda not only acted in a major role in each episode of M*A*S*H during what became called the comedy years, 1972–1979, but for the last four years of the show, 1979-1983, known as the drama years, he served as producer and creative consultant as well. For a couple of episodes his brother Anthony, also an actor, and his father, Robert Alda, who starred in burlesque theatre shows, were guest actors.

As you no doubt already know, this was an immensely popular series. According to Wikipedia, “As of November 2011, the series finale, ‘Goodbye, Farewell and Amen,’ is still the most watched television broadcast in US History. It was on February 28, 1983, from 8:00 p.m. - 11:00 p.m., and, at 11:03 pm, EST, New York City public works noted the highest water usage at one given time in the City's history. This was due to the fact that in the three minutes after the finale ended, approximately 77% of New York City flushed their toilets.”

Alda helped write plots for other programs and also wrote two memoirs, “Never Have Your Dog Stuffed: and Other Things I've Learned” and “Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself,” both of which I really enjoyed.

Alda has been married to a talented woman, Arlene for almost 60 years, and he has also been a promoter for feminist activists for many years, co-chairing the Equal Rights Amendment with Betty Ford. In 1976, The Boston Globe amusingly dubbed him "the quintessential Honorary Woman: a feminist icon.”

For me Alda is an outstanding example of someone who has extended his life indefinitely by being so active and so successful as an actor, as a producer, as a writer and as a warm, witty fellow we will all remember for many years.

Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein describe this kind of worthy, extended life in their amusing book, “Heidegger and a Hippo Walk Through Those Pearly Gates: Using Philosophy (and Jokes!) to Explore Life, Death, the Afterlife, and Everything in Between.” 

People like Alda, they say, “come up with a strategy for extending life indefinitely without actually adding any ‘clock time’ to our lifespan.”

PHYSICAL AILMENTS DON'T DIMINISH LIFE'S WONDERS

For the past year I was afraid I was coming down with Alzheimer's for four rather scary but valid reasons.

Firstly, almost twice as many women as men are likely to fall into this category. Secondly, women who have had breast cancer surgery are more likely to suffer from it, and I had that operation 14 years ago, at age 60. Thirdly, people who have had open heart surgery are also more likely, and I had that experience just a year ago April.

And last, but certainly not least, my memory has gone way downhill ever since that last operation, and I’ve learned that memory loss is one of the early signs of possible Alzheimer’s.

Because I was worried, I went to a neurologist and had various tests he prescribed. When I went back to him, he reported to me that I have had a small stroke which has caused this problem.

What can I do about this situation? Well, I try hard to keep my brain and mind active by reading challenging books, writing my columns for each Friday in the Enquirer and continuing to teach classes for the Institute for Learning in Retirement.

I’ve learned quite a bit about Alzheimer’s, as well, from a very moving column from Sheina Jacobson, a writer from Canada. Her family has had some very sad experiences with their father’s Alzheimer’s and the challenges it presented for them. 

Her column on the subject appeared in over 50 newspapers, both in Canada and in this country, and it certainly scared me before I learned about my stroke. As she put it, the family had to treat their dad as though he was a child, saying to him, for example, "Good boy, you put your shoes on by yourself,” and "No, your PJs don't go over your pants". For him, as unfortunately for most Alzheimer’s patients, his ‘present’ disintegrated in about 15 seconds, leaving no past and no future. He would therefore repeat himself constantly as he would have no recall of what he’s said or how someone had responded to it.

Another factor, according to Sheina, is that “For a while, the progression might be slow and then, one day, the changes seem to be rapid and noticeable.” As an example of this kind of change, former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s husband, who was suffering from Alzheimer’s, suddenly had a romance with another woman. Sandra, bless her heart, sympathized and even visited with the new couple while they sat holding hands on the porch swing. As she explained, it was a relief to see her husband of 55 years so content, even though he was suffering from Alzheimer’s and had in part replaced her with a new love.

Needless to say, I am extremely thankful that I am not coming down with Alzheimer's.

The results of the stroke, in my case, are far less of a problem. One really positive activity that doesn’t seem to have been affected at all is playing the violin by ear. I can’t always remember the names of songs--much less the lyrics, but the melodies seem to be as easy to remember as always.

My very genuine conclusion for this column is that, having had breast cancer and open heart surgery and now a stroke, I feel the best thing I can do for myself is simply to thank God that I’m alive and energetic, and let the future take care of itself.