Day 46: Four Fiddles and a Song

I know where all the music went last night.

In all the rest of the world, I’m quite sure there was a pause and a humming in everyone’s mind, wondering how a tune went, trying to make sense of a song forgot.

Last night, all the music in the world went silent to listen to sounds coming from inside a little church, in the middle of the woods, in the middle of nowhere, between hills and valleys, soil and sky.

For three years now, I’ve attended this annual concert. It is not comprised of a “band.” It’s a Dane, a Finn, a Shetland Islander, and a Bostonian who come together to share, to teach, to play, and to learn. They’re each masters in their own land.

They gather in a church that has a ship hanging from the ceiling. It’s a replica of the ship some of our immigrant parents arrived in.

They recover songs of the past, from composers long gone, and remember us to culture’s voice. They write and compose the sound of today; they pass it along and add to the cry of generation.

They tell story.
They relay history.
They nudge us into tomorrow.

And I got to be there.

 

I got to hear the Finn, who keeps the rhythm in his feet, without apology or restraint. Who pounds the floor and forces the beat up, up, up into your ankles and changes the pace of your pulse.

I got to see the Shetlander, who stirs the strings with his arm, and whips his wrist like a horse’s tail while his fingers fly on the board.

I got to see the Bostonian Lass, whose grooving knees and bouncing bun accent every slide and chop, cut and crunch, and whose wide smile almost hides the somber knowing in her eyes when the music starts to play.

I got to see the Dane, whose heart comes out in note and accidental, who is history in the making, who hears and plays the sound of soul. And his wife, the song, the muse, the Danish beauty. How they looked at each other when they played…

I got to see that. In a small pond of people, in a little church in the middle of the woods, in the middle of nowhere, between hills and valleys, earth and sky. I saw.

I saw where all the music went last night.

 

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