One of those people who say “Never say never.” My friends, if asked, would be eager to tell you that I have annoyed each of them at least half a dozen times for various reasons to not begin a sentence with the words “I can’t”.
But at the risk of falling into hypocrisy, I have to begin this short text by keeping it real. I can’t dance…seriously. Also while I’m in ‘confessing-my-faults’ mode here, my attempts at singing have gotten me labeled ‘tone deaf’, ‘Luther Can’t-dross’ and on more than one occasion I’ve heard the words “Okay – okay just stop” in the middle of my hitting a note.
So since I shouldn’t say the words “I can’t”, I’ll just say that I currently struggle with (clears throat) ‘hitting certain octaves’ at this point in my non-career as a vocalist.
My struggles with hitting a note reminds me of our spiritually, mentally and politically misguided struggles as the Human Family to harmonize and arrange the notes of thought and action into pleasing, foot tapping, rhythmic tones. Notes that would be strummed from the chords of our minds and allow our souls to dance as one.
The will and discipline to evolve an arrangement of melodic vibrations into timeless symphonies out of the disharmonious and confused collection of notes that we currently have jumbled on the page of our minds and planet still eludes us.
What healing can be found in the melodies of a well ordered arrangement? The Son of Man says it would be a wise investment of time for us to plumb the depths of the answer to that question.
Excuse my language and my street colloquialisms but with the planet being poisoned, our food and water being controlled by corporations and our political leaders bought and paid for… shit done got real!
It has been said that “Music is a universal language”. As a lover of music, yet a non-dancing-Luther-Can’t-dross singing type of guy, I can only relate to the truth of the question of this ‘universal language’ by my awareness of music being exactly what everything else is, vibrations and energy. That certainly is universal. The great scientist Nicola Tesla stated “If you wish to understand the universe think of energy, frequency and vibration”.
After meditating on what music actually is I see it –yes, I SEE music — as a rhythmic timing of vibration and sound that allows us to be reminded of the harmony and serenity of a well ordered life (being life partners with a musician my definition better at least be close or I’ll never hear the end of it).
There are lessons in our music, in our universal harmonious symphony that is above us, beneath us and all around us. Wise Jazz aficionados are clear that John Coltrane and Miles Davis are prophets showing us ‘the way’ no less than those written of in the scriptures.
Billie Holiday and Aretha Franklin are proof that voices are angels and definitely have wings.
Rakim showed us an example of the effortlessness of life’s flow over the roughest terrain when the flow is done in Consciousness.
James Brown and Michael Jackson, are absolutely messengers of the rhythmic vibrations of life.
The tone and pitch of one’s voice can heal as well as harm. The rhythm of the vibration of one’s thoughts attract as well as repel. In 1976 the great music revolutionary Stevie Wonder released one of the greatest collections of ‘lessons’ ever recorded, “Songs in The Key of Life”… The Son of Man says LIFE IS MUSIC… LIVE HARMONIOUSLY WITH YOURSELF AND YOUR MUSIC WILL BE HEARD.
To those that have an ear, let them hear.
SON OF MAN
