Silence is golden…

It was, for me, becoming one of life’s certainties; music has both the voice and the range to impress upon any moment. Whether it is in celebrating a sporting triumph, thanking your version of our maker or wooing a lover, a sonic backdrop that can raise the emotions is seemingly always available.

The television, our 21st century hearth, offers a snapshot of life’s (and subsequently music’s) range. To listen without picture will tell you of drama, tension, seduction and joy. There will be a tune for hatred, anger, dismay or grief. Advertisers know it and film-makers know it; music is the subtle half of a two-pronged sensory attack, that which so often turns a tempting product into a sale or makes a good scene a great one. I had thought it was a near empirical truth, that music is a suitable accompaniment to all things life. That is until last Sunday.

That day of course was Remembrance Sunday. Watching the march past at the Cenotaph, it seemed that music would be on hand throughout, to stimulate the emotions of both those present and those gathered round the hearth of their homes. From Holst’s I Vow to Thee, My Country to the sounding of The Last Post, we were sharing a moment together, many of us different ages and make ups, differing view points located up and down the country. Despite this diversity a brief bond was being made, with music as the focus. I took a bird’s eye view in my mind, the living rooms and churches, town halls and nursing homes. It was yet more fodder for my truth; music can impress upon any moment.

Yet it was following the lone bugler’s recital that the true purpose of the day arrived, and I learned I was wrong. For it is not often in life we experience the quiet, a moment not only without music but a moment in which music would be inappropriate and uncouth. That is exactly what followed in two minutes’ silence, a moment which no sound could enhance, a time better without melody.

I have made it an obsession of late to let my ears ride above all other senses, to realise how plentiful is music in our everyday lives. It has taken me by surprise how uncommon it is that a soundtrack will not, cannot be found. But here we were, a country steadied by music, thrust into that rarest of things. A moment where silence was truly golden.

…but what of music?

And then on Monday, music did what silence never can and filled our hearts as Steve Martin sailed in from America to present his own interpretation of the good time composition that is blue-grass. Country music at large has a reputation for heartbreak, cultivated by the mass of balladeers that swathe the Country Billboard Charts. Blue-grass’ roots, though, are far more enjoyable. As America’s folk music, it became the soundtrack to travelling westerners, garnishing hoedowns, parties and campfires. It was designed to keep spirits up when travelling, to relay stories to passers-by, to amuse and entertain when there was little else to entertain.

Filled with humour and talent, there was something quite noble in the Steep Canyon Rangers and their renditions of Martin’s songs, something much less phallic than our guitar heroes, less overtly sexual than the divas we are used to. The music was quick, lightening quick even, intensely rhythmic and extremely melodic. Theirs is a traditional line-up of acoustic guitar, banjo, mandolin, double-bass and fiddle. The syncopation these plucky instruments provide means there is no need for drums. The bass provides the on-beat – the kick drum; THUD. The guitar and the mandolin scrape the off-beat snare; THWACK. The banjo and fiddle sweetly tap out the hi-hat pattern. You can see how much technical ability is needed to keep the sequence steady, the beat firm, whilst on top of all this the business of melodic improvisation and accompaniment is executed.

It was in such craft that the joy was found, in something quite removed from the gregariousness of rock ‘n’ roll. The six players on stage at the Royal Festival Hall seemed more workmen than showmen, but there was no less exhibition for that. To see truly skilled musicians, entertaining not with lights nor fashion but simply lining up around a single microphone and delivering a music steeped in heritage, yet still relevant, was something to behold – a glimpse perhaps to the world before Bill Hayley rocked around the clock, a glimpse perhaps to a time when the lone bugle call was the only soundtrack of our lives.