There is music and I’ll play the songs

I think music has a heartbeat that never dies.

I believe this heartbeat is passed on through generations; a gentle, genetic reminder of not only who we are, but from hence we come.

For me, the heartbeat of music is like connecting with the souls of people the relentless train of time and distance has somehow taken away.

I’m not exactly sure what it is about music that softens the edges of the harshest day and does other good things, but really, in the big picture, I guess it doesn’t matter a whole lot.

It works.

Music makes people happy, it makes people laugh, it makes people tap their toes and move their bodies and think about gyrating their hips out on the dance floor whether they are one or 101.

To me, music does of all of that and more. To me, listening to the right kind of tunes on the right kind of day is almost like reading one of those self-help books, using notes instead of words.

That being said, I have dreadfully neglected making any sort of music happen in my life since New Year’s Eve. I certainly had no problem rockin’ and rollin’ my way down memory lane that night. With an obliging and talented guitar player by my side, we sang every song we knew and, as the night wore on, some we didn’t.

But since that time, the music, for me at least, has died.

I had started off December with my usual determination, no matter how displaced, to sit down at the piano and play Christmas carols so when people dropped in we could all sit around the piano and play such carols. I would, of course, serve eggnog and spiced rum and after a couple of drinks no one would notice if I could or couldn’t play the carols really well or at all, for that matter.

Anyway, about Dec. 10 I had carefully packed away, (OK, not all that carefully) all of my music in favor of several sheets with the music to Mary’s Boy Child I propped upon my old fashioned piano that graces my living room with style and grace befitting such a lovely instrument. The sheets sat on my piano, threatening to flutter to the floor every time someone opened the living room door, for all of December and even into January.

And now, with Christmas disappearing from my living room as it should in January, once again the sheet music to Mary’s Boy Child has been packed away in the deep, dark bowels of my basement.

It’s sad.

But me, being the internal optimist, I am absolutely convinced my piano keys will not sit silent and still this year.

There will be music.

And I can, if I close my eyes tightly enough, see someone come in, pick up the guitar in the corner, the one that has stood quiet and still for far too long, and begin to play.

And I, in my eagerness to hear the music I can already hear in my head, will supply that person with a pick, whether it be a plastic bread wrapper, or a real honest to goodness store bought one.

And, once again, there will be music simply because I believe there has to be.

After all, music is the heartbeat that is passed down through generations and never, ever dies.

And, for that I will be forever and eternally grateful!