Sound and Silence

"Music consists of sound and silence."

A musician spoke those words to me many years ago. Little did he know how profoundly he'd impact my way of thinking about life in general. The words seem so simple, but they apply to so much.

The sound part is easy to get. We all hear the melodies, the harmonies. It's kind of hard to miss noise. Silence, though, is a little trickier. It's the full, quiet space that blooms around the notes.

Silence is what defines sound. It provides those necessary breaks that create rhythm and texture, tension and release. It provides rest, time to breathe. Without it, sound is reduced to relentless, unending droning.

I share a chatty (and maybe slightly narcissistic) tendency that I find common among writers. (Can I consider myself a writer just because I have a blog?) We seem to love stringing words together. Because everyone wants to read them. Because what we have to say is important. [Obviously. ;-) ]

Sometimes, though, it makes more sense to take a break. To be quiet and let the voice of another fill the space that we've been taking up. To simply listen and let something grow out of the silence.