Bonaroo
Those of us who live around middle Tennessee are proud to have Bonaroo here. The first Bonaroo occurred in 2002 — it sold out in a few days with virtually no advertising, and it has become an annual event now for music lovers of all kinds. It’s all kind of music — groups you’ve never heard of (Peanut Butter Lovesicle?), the folks you’ve heard of but were never really motivated enough to go to one of their concerts (Preservation Hall Jazz Band; Wu-tang Clan), all the way to the greats. 2013 Bonaroo featured Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, the Lumineers, Mumford & Sons had to cancel due to illness, and, of course, Paul McCartney.
Bonaroo got me thinking about what music is all about. Sidebar: love the Tennessee flag in the photo on the left. After all, Nashville is called Music City, so what are the pieces of music that draw our loyalty to one artist and not-so-much to another?
Well, music is rhythm, pitch, melody, timbre, intensity, and harmony (among other elements). By the way, I’m not writing this with any music theory street cred, it’s just a few thoughts. Rhythm is pretty easy to imagine; we can hardly join in tapping along when we hear a song with a driving beat. Rhythm involves us to participate. Perhaps it resonates with the rhythms of our own bodies, our heartbeats, our breaths. Duration is what I’m calling the difference in short, staccato sounds like drumbeats or banjo plucking, and long, flowing sounds like how the music of a harp or a clarinet hangs in the air. While we’re on the idea of two instruments sounding so differently, I think the formal word for that is “timbre.” Timbre is that subtle variation in how two similar things sound. The best example I can think of is there are two people you know well talking with each other behind you. You can tell just from the “sound” of their voices who’s who — that’s timbre.
Both are beautiful, but the mood is different regarding both duration and timbre: the short sounds are more hyper, the longer sounds are more calming and mellow. That leads us to the intensity or strength of music, the difference between a metal rock or gangsta rap versus Allison Krauss singing a ballad. Pitch, melody are important, too, because I think everybody agrees that when the singer of the national anthem strives to reach the highest note (“the Star-Spangled Banner yet wave, o’er the Land of the Free…”), we all kind of cringe just a little and hope that the singer can belt it out without strangling at the top. Finally, music is all about harmony: the blending together of distinct sounds that are even more enhanced when they are played simultaneously — like a chord. We all love harmony. Think barbershop quartets. Harmony feels good; it makes you feel like all’s right with the world.
So we’re back to Bonaroo: thousands and thousands of people co-existing for a few days, enjoying the rhythm, the melodies, the different timbres and intensities. Blended together and even more enhanced because they are sounded together. In Tennessee. In harmony. In peace. Sweet.