Rests in music and in life

When you study music, you first learn about notes - the shape and fill of the note with its stem and flags determine how long each individual note is played or sung; and their placement on the staff determines which note or pitch is played. Other notations in a musical score describe tempo, volume, sharp or flat, etc.

Equally important is to learn about rests. These are instructions in musical notation that NO sound is to be created for a short interval. The length of the rest is also critical, as it relates to the notes around it.

A beautiful composition requires a combination of pitches and tempo, sounds and rests.

I was thinking about how important it is to mix silence with sound in creating music. The appropriate breaks in the melody, though subtle, are as critical to the overall coposition as the actual sounds played.

I think it's also important to mix sound and silence, activity and rest in our lives. Sometimes we choose a period of rest - we decide to retreat from an activity or a situation. Sometimes the rest is imposed on us, even against our will, as we are denied opportunities or forced to retreat. We can profit from the rest, recognizing its place in the music of our life; but we can also feel that the activity is interrupted in ways we don't appreciate or understand.

Here's a beautiful quote from John Ruskin, the 19th century English scholar and philosopher, that explains this relationship between sound and silence:

“There is no music in a rest, but there is the making of music in it. In our whole life-melody the music is broken off here and there by 'rests,' and we foolishly think we have come to the end of the tune. God sends a time of forced leisure, sickness, disappointed plans, frustrated efforts, and makes a sudden pause in the choral hymn of our lives, and we lament that our voices must be silent, and our part missing in the music which ever goes up to the ear of the Creator.

"How does the musician read the rest? See him beat the time with unvarying count, and catch up the next note true and steady, as if no breaking place had come between.

"Not without design does God write the music of our lives. But be it ours to learn the tune, and not be dismayed at the 'rests.'

"They are not to be slurred over nor to be omitted, nor to destroy the melody, nor to change the keynote. If we look up, God Himself will beat the time for us. With the eye on Him, we shall strike the next note full and clear.”

- John Ruskin

I #GiveThanks for the times of rest in my life - between assignments, at the end of a day, in the midst of trial, and even as a part of disappointment. There is much to be learned from the quiet moments, that can help to make the music beautiful.