Life of Music
Location
It started with the beat of a mother's heart,
and crickets rubbing their leg and wing parts.
The wind through the trees started the first whistle,
and the birds in the trees singing from their tops.
Then man discovered hollow reeds that make sound
and realized that the size of the tube and how round
changed how high and low the played pitch bent,
and so the Great God Pan, his flute to man he lent.
Over a while the people found ways to make bows,
tightening the strings to create more powerful arrows.
Man found they liked the twang that came from the string,
and like the reeds, leanth and tautness changed the sound of the thing.
Man made lyres, and then to art of band and orchestra instruments,
that only the best could play, those with a lot of musical sense.
The instruments have changed over the years, from tubes
to the keyed flutes and clarinets found in the music groups.
Full orchestras played long symphonies, with many motions,
but the Opuses and Sonatas and Symphonies fell silent.
Songs grew to lyrics to fit the melodies,
The melodies grew to fit the lyrics.
Concerts began to be taken over by electrical instruments,
the full orchestras went to country guitar,
the guitars went electric with loud speaks,
the louder the speakers the better.
We now listen to pretty much all technology.
The record, the tape, the CD, now MP3 and iPod.
It comes from our computer,
it hangs in our ears.
There may still be classical out there,
but the beats have gotten stronger,
the world has gone to pop
to techno, to rock.
Rock from reeds,
guitars from bows,
batons to drums,
nature to virtual.