I love music. Yes, I’ll admit to being one of those people who more often than not has earphones in and a iPod somewhere on their person. I love having music while I’m doing the dishes, going for a run, walking to campus, or just taking it easy in the evening. When I’m not out and about or otherwise just don’t have the iPod on, I’m likely to have the old GE radio playing in the kitchen, usually tuned to CBC’s Radio 2. Or I have a record playing on the turntable in the living room.
In a sense, music pervades my life. I listen to music that matches my moods, or that lifts me up when I’m feeling down. I’ve marked events with music – to this day I can’t hear “Dweller on the Threshold” without thinking of being in Oxford, or “Life is Long” without remembering the roadtrip to Buffalo for a conference. I associated music with people, places, and times, which tends to give it a lot of meaning.
Of course, all of this music requires power – not a lot of it, but power all the same. I wonder what will happen if we have less access to electricity than we do now, if we have any at all. Awhile back I did get a hand-crank radio to have around for emergencies. The sound is fine, although a good deal of cranking seems to be required. But it’s a bit of a pain, and from a music standpoint if something bad happens, I’m not expecting to be hearing that much music coming through the speakers.
Music, of course, is not the first priority, and its loss will be neither the biggest nor the hardest felt if and when things start to get worse. There is something to be said for music, though. It’s associated with memories, sure, but it’s a also entertainment, a distraction, and perhaps most importantly, a way of bringing people together. And so, a little bit at a time I’ve been trying to play my own music a bit more, to get out the instruments, remember what I once knew, and learn what I didn’t.
And so I’ve started picking up the guitar again. It’s been a good long while since I played, and my skills were never really all that great anyway, so this really is a bit of a learning process, but it feels good to be getting it out, sitting down, and playing a bit. Right now I’m mostly playing to build up calluses so that my fingers ca withstand learning to pick again, but I anticipate that getting into some harder practice will be good as well, and I hope that some of my earlier lessons (which I wish now I’d taken a lot more seriously back in the day).
It’s a bit of a relief to know that I could make music again – or even learn to make music again – if I had to. I have the guitar and the accessories and the books. I also have a saxophone here somewhere as well, although that doesn’t really work all that well in an apartment I find, especially when the walls are thin and the sound carries. But to know that I could make my own – without relying on power – feels important and empowering. It may not save the world, but I imagine it could make a world of difference.
