Wednesday 29th April - Sound, and Noise

This morning was sparkling star to the day. As the sun rises over the front of the house, the light travels down slowly from the tops of the trees at the bottom of the garden to the roots, and then up towards the back of the house by the afternoon.

At about 8 am I opened the back door and looked out, and was literally dazzled by the combination of bright blue sky and vivid green leaves all flickering in the fresh sharp breeze. From a tree in another garden a little further along there was the most tremendous noise. Several dozen starlings were jostling and bustling about, all continuously commenting on everything.   

They kept up this racket - I couldn't possibly call it birdsong - all day. I've just discovered that while a flock of starlings in flight is a 'murmuration', another collective noun is a 'chattering' of starlings.

I watched the starlings for a little while later in the day. I think it was a 'first flight' day for this year's broods, as the birds were making longer flights between the fences separating the gardens. Perhaps the starlings weren't arguing, but doing the equivalent of shouting 'watch me!' 'Did you see that?' 'Look, I'm going to the next tree!' and so on to each other, like excited children on a climbing frame.

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Now follows a rant about background music.....

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I'm slowly reading Sara Maitland's book 'On Silence' which is about her searching for, and investigations about silence. I suspect that true silence is impossible to find, except in carefully, scientifically constructed chambers. She describes a lot of her experiences of solitude, a different thing altogether. I think the nearest we can get to silence in normal life is the reduction, maybe elimination of what I think of as deliberately added extra noise. 

Now, if you wanted some background music while you read my rantings, how about Elgar, Chanson du matin? Or just skip the rant and go straight to the music?

                 

TV programmes, I'm looking at you... I've given up watching favourites like 'The Repair Shop', and others such as 'The Great British Bakeoff' and 'Masterchef' are on notice. They have incessant background music - no, all it 'muzak'. 

Are they mending clocks? Cue tick-tock style music. Cut to person mending a teddy bear and we abruptly switch to a music box waltz. Here's someone mending a military cap and guess what, our ears and brain now have to assimilate a brass band march, faded down during the voice over, increased in volume while the presenter takes a breath and faded down for the next sentence.

Cooking - there are separate jingles for announcing the challenge, for beginning to cook, for approaching the judging time, for standing waiting for the verdict... you don't have to watch to know exactly what's happening.

I've nearly reached the end of this rant - I was dismayed to hear background music exploding into the short gaps between items in the radio programme about statistics in the news called 'More or Less'. Totally unnecessary.     

And finally; 'The Enchanted April' by Elizabeth von Armin is being seralised on the radio at the moment. It's such a lovely, lovely book. I've read it twice, and I'm enjoying the episode on the radio, but, but, but... as the reader reads the description of Lottie's first morning waking up in the castle in Italy, there is also a gorgeous piece of violin music, which exactly fits the mood and description. Except that I cannot concentrate on the words, and build the picture in my mind, and listen to the music all at the same time. My castle and the terraced gardens and view all crumbled to dust... still, I had the music to listen to!

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