Tick.
Hmmmm.... I'm not sure that that even does it justice.
Tick. No, tick definitely isn't the right word.
Pulsate? Vibrate? Hum? I wouldn't so much call it a tick. Ticking, as a clock does, is rhythmic. Predictable. Boring. I think the *it* we're talking about -- that thing that defines existence as we know it -- is much more pervasive.
Go to the quietest place you can find. Close your eyes. Lie very, very still for a few minutes.
Tel me what you hear.
No, it's not nothing. Listen. REALLY listen. Find that sound and latch on to it. If you can suss it out and isolate it, it'll drive you mad in a minute or so.
Do you remember what televisions did from the 1970s?
They made a high-pitched sound; it was something to do with how the electricity behaved inside the cathode ray tube. Some people's hearing isn't fine-tuned enough to hear it. I've always had very acute hearing, even though I've abused it over the years.
That sound -- the high-pitched sound -- could be a peripheral descriptor of what I hear when it all gets quiet. But that's just the beginning, because what I hear... It's so much more. Take that high pitched, constant broadcast, and put it somewhere you can find it.
Now go to a piano. Step on the Sostenuto pedal -- or, the one in the middle that *would* be the Sostenuto pedal on a Steinway. It may just be a half-blow pedal, but for our exercise, it'll work just as well.
Step on it.
Now, as much as you can, press all of the piano keys at once -- firmly. If you can't press them all at once, press as many as you can at one time, then press the remaining ones.
Keep the pedal depressed.
Wait for a minute or two.
Wait for the sound to quiet down. Wait until it almost completely dies out.
Try to weave your mind in and out of each key as the sound dies out. Try to isolate each key. You can do it if you focus.
SEE the sound. Visualize it.
You have to be able see the sound three-dimensionally.
Now go get that sound I told you to put aside just a little while ago -- the high-pitched broadcast. Mix it in with the Sostenuto-pedal-damped piano's cry. Take that.
Magnify it.
Magnify it.
Make it 1000-times louder, and then triple it.
And that's close. That's close to what I hear when it all gets dark and quiet inside my head.
It's never the same, but it's always there.
When I try to describe to people, they usually say, "How sad..."
I think it's quite the contrary. I can SEE sound -- anticipate it.
I watch it rise and fall, breath and grow on the black palette of my mind. The colors are more brilliant and vibrant than any you can find in the visual spectrum.
It's a gift.
It's how I'm able to fully enjoy Vocal Trance.
Certainly, that's not the only outlet, but an excellent example of the very thing that drives my being.
No, it's not nothing. Listen. REALLY listen. Find that sound and latch on to it. If you can suss it out and isolate it, it'll drive you mad in a minute or so.
Do you remember what televisions did from the 1970s?
They made a high-pitched sound; it was something to do with how the electricity behaved inside the cathode ray tube. Some people's hearing isn't fine-tuned enough to hear it. I've always had very acute hearing, even though I've abused it over the years.
That sound -- the high-pitched sound -- could be a peripheral descriptor of what I hear when it all gets quiet. But that's just the beginning, because what I hear... It's so much more. Take that high pitched, constant broadcast, and put it somewhere you can find it.
Now go to a piano. Step on the Sostenuto pedal -- or, the one in the middle that *would* be the Sostenuto pedal on a Steinway. It may just be a half-blow pedal, but for our exercise, it'll work just as well.
Step on it.
Now, as much as you can, press all of the piano keys at once -- firmly. If you can't press them all at once, press as many as you can at one time, then press the remaining ones.
Keep the pedal depressed.
Wait for a minute or two.
Wait for the sound to quiet down. Wait until it almost completely dies out.
Try to weave your mind in and out of each key as the sound dies out. Try to isolate each key. You can do it if you focus.
SEE the sound. Visualize it.
You have to be able see the sound three-dimensionally.
Now go get that sound I told you to put aside just a little while ago -- the high-pitched broadcast. Mix it in with the Sostenuto-pedal-damped piano's cry. Take that.
Magnify it.
Magnify it.
Make it 1000-times louder, and then triple it.
And that's close. That's close to what I hear when it all gets dark and quiet inside my head.
It's never the same, but it's always there.
I'll know when I'm dead, because it will be gone.
When I try to describe to people, they usually say, "How sad..."
I think it's quite the contrary. I can SEE sound -- anticipate it.
I watch it rise and fall, breath and grow on the black palette of my mind. The colors are more brilliant and vibrant than any you can find in the visual spectrum.
It's a gift.
It's how I'm able to fully enjoy Vocal Trance.
Certainly, that's not the only outlet, but an excellent example of the very thing that drives my being.
2 comments:
I read this a couple of days ago, when you posted. And again yesterday. And today. I've been trying to figure out what noise is inside my head, and I've been thinking about the sounds inside yours.
Is that freedom rock, man? Well turn it up man.
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