Mr. Twigley’s eyes glowed behind his spectacles as he thought of all the lovely things he would put in the musical box.
“But you can’t hear trees growing,” protested Michael. “There’s no music for that!”
“Tut!” said Mr. Twigley impatiently. “Of course there is! There’s a music for everything. Didn’t you ever hear the earth spinning? It makes a sound like a humming-top. Buckingham Palace plays ‘Rule Britannia’; the River Thames is a drowsy flute. Dear me, yes! Everything in the world — trees, rocks and stars and human beings — they all have their own true music.”
—P.L. Travers, Mary Poppins Opens the Door
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Think what you will but I love the Mary Poppins stories. It seems like every chapter has a philosophical lesson or message, an urging to see the world in a different way. There is usually a reminder that things are not always what they seem, that what we see and know is only a small part of the whole, that there are worlds and worlds around and beyond us.
Fittingly, it’s very much the theme of my recent work and upcoming show at the West End Gallery. The painting, a 24″ by 12″ canvas, shown at the top is part of that show and is titled Listener (The True Music). I had Mr. Twigley‘s workshop, and that particular snippet from the book above, in mind when I was working on this piece. The idea that everything has its own true music, its own truth, resonates with me.
I don’t exactly know what my own true music might be. There have been songs and sounds that often bring me to tears so my guess is that my true music might reside in the chanter of a bagpipe, in the low vibrations of a cello or in the twang of a guitar string.
Or maybe it’s in the sounds of a lone voice singing Amazing Grace.
Or the voices of a large chorus united in Ode to Joy.
Or maybe it is simply in the sound of the wind as it moves the top of the grasses of the fields and in the leaves of trees.
Sometimes, as I walk through the woods to my studio, the trees moving in the wind rub and seem to make loud squawks and voice-like sounds that make me stop and try to hear what they might be saying.
Maybe that’s my true music.
I am not sure but I will continue listening.
What is your true music?
Redtree Times 
The sound of water along the hull as a sailboat cuts through the water. Wind in mountain pines. Birdsong. The sound of tires on a gravel road. Any song by Asleep at the Wheel.
What an interesting quotation, and an interesting question. It reminds me of a line from an old hymn I grew up with: “all nature sings, and round me rings the music of the spheres.”
“all nature sings, and round me rings the music of the spheres.” What a beautiful line! I looked it up and saw that it is from a hymn titled *This Is My Father’s World*.
Yep. One year in Vacation Bible School, we went out and looked for examples of the things mentioned in different stanza: one stanza per day. Needless to say, the words have stuck in my mind.
That would be a great song for such an exercise. Wonderful!
what an excellent question and lovely responses… thank you so much! This is a keeper, a sharer……
Thanks! I am glad when pieces like this reach out so well.
I, too, love P. L. Travers’ Mary Poppins. It saddens and angers me that children today only know those great children’s classics — Pooh, Alice, Mole and Ratty, and Mary — from Disney’s “cutsified” versions of them.
Your music of the spheres made me think of “The Moldau,” that wonderful piece by Bedřich Smetana. And yes, the spheres make music. Now we have the science and instruments to hear them. http://earthsky.org/space/video-for-your-ears-what-do-planets-sound-like
What a lovely piece of music! And the sound of the planets is fantastic– it sounds sometimes like the rumbling innards of an enormous machine which I guess is only fitting. Great stuff–thank you!