Sounds and Melodies
Last night, I rode in a back seat through the Midtown Tunnel, down Second Avenue, west on 19th and over to Eighth Avenue. Every time I come to Manhattan, I am struck by its personality. Boston, for all its history, does not speak to me the way New York does.
This morning, I listened to an interview between Terry Gross and Paul Simon. She asked him about his song, “The Sounds of Silence”:
TG: If you had to choose a song that was like a prototype of young alienation, that would be it—“people talking without speaking; people hearing without listening”—it just seems to be so much about this youthful alienation. What do you think?
PS: Yes, it’s true. But it’s not just what the words say; it’s what the melody says; it’s what the sound says. If you don’t have the right sound…it really doesn’t matter what you have to say. People don’t hear it. They’re only available to hear when the sound entrances and makes people open to the thought.
I often wonder what makes one artist well-known while another, perhaps equally talented, stays obscure. Is it about having some sense of pulse, sound, melody that makes people stop and listen?
Simon’s thoughts make me wonder about making art—about words and images but also about sounds and melodies. What gives a piece of art the heartbeat that makes people stop and feel its match with their own?
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