Heidi Trautmann Column - Heidi Trautmann Column 3

Heidi Trautmann

Heidi Trautmann Column 3 - Let’s talk about Music 11/5/2012 In the early morning hours when the sun hasn’t shown its head yet above the rim of our world there is no sound at all and only the first rays seem to waken up the choir of birds in our garden, the sparrows in the bougainvillea right next to my bed, they live in a big community, the wind rustling in the foliage, some fat flies buzz against the window pane. My kind of morning concert. The cool music of your shower water makes you moan with pleasure in this summer heat and if you are talented you will start to sing one of your favourite songs just to let yourself and everybody else know that you are still alive and that you respond to the young day being so agreeable. The cling and clang of pots and pans while breakfast is being prepared will make the last sleepy head raise his nose from his pillow. Music of our everyday. Music in the streets, of people talking, so many different sounds which all mean something, a feeling, an activity, sorrow and happiness, menacing and peaceful. It would be interesting to collect all these pieces of daily music to compose a piece such as …’Environmental Serenade’ or something similar. Music is derived from the muses in the ancient times, the muses as protectresses of the arts and sciences. Remember the adventures of Odysseus when he and his men came under the influences of the Sirens; Odysseus wanted to listen to the famous ill-fated songs and was bound to the mast while his men had their ears plugged with wax. Our whole existence is surrounded by music, our nervous system seems to be very receptive to music and we respond to its luring effects in different ways. Already a foetus can listen to music and will react to it and I believe that these first impressions will recall a certain moment of memory in his/her later adulthood. My ajuverdic masseur told me once to use music as medicine. ‘I forbid you to listen to slow and sad music when not feeling well.’ Put on some hot music and within no time you will feel the reactions in your body, your muscles will start itching and your lips will form a smile, perhaps hum the tune. Even animals respond to music, there was scientific research done to find out whether the hen would lay more and happy eggs, or it was found that classic music had a soothing effect on elephants. We all remember the 1001 Nights stories of the Orient and the story teller on the market making his serpent dance out of the basket. But it is the mathematical order of notes that makes music pleasant to hear, a science being used as an influential medium to make soldiers march, to make us shake our legs like madmen, or as I saw the other day my friend all of a sudden get into an exciting body shake and she answered to my inquisitive glance, oh, it is this Zumba music which makes me vibrate. Samba in Rio, a whole world gets out of control over a certain rhythm. And then the concerts of which we have a couple of yearly events in North Cyprus, in our lovely Bellapais Concert Hall, in the meantime known to many international musicians because of its special charm. It is not the same to listen to a concert at home where your concentration can be interrupted any moment, or sitting in a concert hall with other music lovers, tuning your entire system reception to maximum and also watching the human instrument transporting it to us, that is high pleasure, to follow the mathematical order of notes and sounds which are all present in our universe, starting from rising in the morning and turning in at night with the sounds of a lonely owl or nightingale in our ears, or even an airplane passing over our heads telling us of the wide wide world. Published in Cyprus Observer