RHYME TIME

By: Cynthia Litman

Pearl of the Day: In Harmony We Shine

Leo Tolstoy said the pearl “music is the short hand of emotion.” Expressing emotion is crucial to our survival and I believe, our health.

When life works in harmony, we shine, everything flows. When we are not in harmony, well, life is an out of tune mess. Missing a chord evokes discord.

Yet, there’s always a tune that can be carried even for those like moi who seemingly can’t carry a tune to save their lives. Yours may be G minor while mine is A flat. Like the CD’s flipping through the changer, a change of music can be a change of mood. If you don’t like what’s playing, simply change the channel. Same in life.

Classical music always entrances me and takes me out of my head, particularly in the dentist chair. When I need to get up and go, Madonna gets me into the groove.

In my house we like to “Move It, Move It.” There’s something magical in the way my children dance. Albeit they are still finding their rhythm with my daughter doing non-stop ballerina twirls and my son his own rendition of the running man but they are experiencing freedom of movement.

They orchestrate their own music with various instruments, including chopsticks. We’ve attended music classes together since my son was 6 months old and we will never stop the music. I sing the same lullaby to my kids as my parents sang to me, which my daughter is already passing it down to her “babies” (dolls).

Storytelling, music and the arts in any form are so important to our society. I’m not just saying that because I am an entertainment lawyer, but because we are creative, imaginative beings that constantly need to express and connect!

Entertainment brings other worlds to life and often transcribes what we cannot express. Like how John Lennon’s “IMAGINE” was a song of it’s times and iterated social and political concerns. Yet if someone made a speech with the same lyrics it might not have had the same poignant effect. Or, to put it another way, nothing says “ICE CREAM!!!” like the Mr. Softee theme song.

My sister and brother in law treated my son to his first concert, The Wiggles. We had been listening to their music and watching their videos and now it was going to be his first live event/crowd experience. Nassau Coliseum was packed, the crowd was going wild, instead of bras we were throwing diapers on stage, and as my son sat on my lap, the theater darkened and he clung to me with beguiled amusement until he saw the characters and heard the familiar music. It was an amazing experience. He studied every moment.

Like how film creates visual memories, music embeds itself in our cells and becomes part of our body's memories. For decades, my grandfather hummed a tune to himself that his uncle, a great composer, created. His uncle perished in the Holocaust and my grandfather knew he could not forget this tune. He couldn’t play it himself and so one day when my grandfather was humming this tune, my mom, a pianist, sat by the piano and together they recreated his uncle’s tune.

There was great celebration. That carrying of the tune by my grandfather led to the connection through time and to pass on a piece of his history to generations of his family via my mother’s expression!

Entertainment, music, arts, poetry, photographs – any art form fixed in a tangible medium, is immortal. Entertainment can have an eternal life long after we are gone.

Each generation has its claim on and often disagree about the “best” entertainment. My mom loves the old Hollywood films on the Turner Classic Movies channel and I love listening to the 90’s station on XM. I crank it up and am right back into the better part of my youth, big hair and all. It’s the music I heard when I was gaining my independence and carving my identity.

I cannot remember my past (childhood to now) without Don Ho, Magic Garden, Sesame Street, or the jingles from my favorite TV shows (e.g. Facts of Life, Seinfeld, Charmed, Backyardigans). I nursed many a broken hearts via entertainment and have hit my own Nirvana.

Through the diversity of entertainment I can indeed show my children “What A Wonderful World” (Louis Armstrong) it truly is.

Copyright © 2010 Cynthia Litman d/b/a Tigris Imprints. All Rights Reserved.

RESOURCES:
LONG ISLAND CHILDREN’S MUSEUM: www.LICM.com
The Long Island Children’s Museum has an interactive music floor with a vast array of instruments and sounding boards for the kids to explore.

PANDORA RADIO: My new favorite thing is Pandora Radio – an online internet radio station www.pandora.com