Timothy's Blog

Once again on the calendar and in people's comments everywhere, it seems, today is called the "first day of summer" --- but... why??

Summer is a climatic event that is different every year and different at every location in the world --- isn't it?  Today as Ro and I kayaked across the mighty James River (about a mile and a half over to the bluffs of Surry County, then back to Jamestown Beach --- hooray!), the weather was pleasantly warm and breezy and not too humid, more of a spring day than a summer one.  We've had a number of muggy, summery days already, even though it's been quite a cool springtime.  So why in the world should we say today is the day summer begins?

The Italian word “tempo” means “time” --- music moving through time at a certain speed, as we generally think of it.  But it also involves how we progress through time.  Offhand, I can immediately think of three different ways in which the tempo moves.  Let’s line them out:

1)    Steadily:  Like a metronome that ticks away every beat, or, with the human element, moving along pretty nearly like a metronome but with more life to it --- this is the most common tempo motion.  In fact, Pop music recordings often utilize a studio “click track” metronome that serves as a reference during the recording process so all the instruments and voices move along together and the song can be set up to be good for dancing. Then in the final mixdown the metronome track is removed.  We all need to be able to keep this kind of flow (click track or not) and to keep it consistent, no matter what genre of music we play!  Old-Time and Bluegrass music, for example, tend to keep this consistent rhythm.  It's the easiest "groove" for an ensemble's members to keep their timing precise.

[By the way, in the photo I'm playing my tune "Big Meadows Twilight" in the twilight at Big Meadows, Shenandoah National Park in 2000 --- photo by our daughter Karen.]

There are many approaches a musician can take toward a melody and arrangement:  Perhaps your choice today is choosing a genre to play it in, for example doing a reel as Old-Time vs. Bluegrass vs. Celtic; or perhaps you need to decide whether you’re playing toward an audience, or playing as if closed into your own little world and the audience just gets to listen in; or perhaps you need to figure out if you just want to play a beautiful tune as beautifully as you can, or if you want to communicate some additional meaning through it.  These and many other decisions come into play as we face the performance of a particular piece of music.

As I play music, or as people listen to my recordings, I am continually startled by the vast range of comments I get.  Disregard the negative ones --- let’s even just consider the spectrum of compliments!

I’ll be pounding my hammers on the dulcimer in a dark minor key using dramatic chord changes and then I shift to a jarringly different key and an even more passionate and animated progression of what I consider to be compelling and powerful musical expressions and ideas.  Often at a time like this someone will come up and say, “This beautiful music is so soothing and relaxing, I could just fall asleep to it.”