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OwlSA
Member Rara Avis
since 2005-11-07
Posts 9347
Durban, South Africa

0 posted 2011-01-17 03:35 PM


SIBLINGS
THE MUSIC OF A LANGUAGE
15 January 2011

To hear the music
a language speaks
you need to
not
understand a word.

THE LANGUAGE OF MUSIC
15 January 2011

To hear the language
that music speaks,
you need to
turn your senses six
on to high alert
and let every note
flood your spirit
and seep through
every corner
of your frame
and envelop
you in a tonal bubble
that speaks to you
in ways beyond words
that cannot be unlearnt
the rest of your days.

Owl

© Copyright 2011 Diana van den Berg - All Rights Reserved
steavenr
Member Elite
since 2003-11-17
Posts 4058

1 posted 2011-01-17 04:30 PM


profound, succinct, AND enjoyable...now, I would call that a homerun (do you play baseball in south africa?)
ethome
Member Patricius
since 2000-05-14
Posts 11858
New Brunswick Canada
2 posted 2011-01-17 04:30 PM


Yes, you have it just exactly right!
That universal language, made for the communication between the earth and the skies with mere insignificant humans in the middle.
Loved this. I remember listening to Andreas Bocheli one night and although not understanding Italian, I actually cried.

Eric

Love does not look after it's own interests.

JerryPat
Senior Member
since 2010-10-30
Posts 1991
Louisiana/America
3 posted 2011-01-17 05:34 PM


Music. You got it, Owl. It has been the rallying cry of the destitute and impoverished, the anthem to nations great and small, but mostly music comes the closest to incorporating the soul, or what stands for the soul, as anything on earth. Words, mere words, gain momentous clarity when reeds and strings and keys are blown through, fretted and fingered are introduced to them. Long live the music.

~ Why Do Gorillas Have Big Nostrils? / Because They Have Big Fingers. ~

Sunshine
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-25
Posts 63354
Listening to every heart
4 posted 2011-01-17 05:39 PM


Music crosses so many barriers...

Thank you, Diana, for a poem
well done!


s1nfully_1nn0c3nt
Senior Member
since 2003-10-26
Posts 1105
Watertown, NY
5 posted 2011-01-17 05:59 PM


I agree, music and language, are both beautiful things. Currently, I'm attempting to learn Korean, I absolutely adore that language Music, ah....I can't even imagine life without music, and I happen to be learning to play the guitar too. Enjoyed.

-Trina
Life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim.
-Bertrand Russell

faithmairee
Senior Member
since 2011-01-05
Posts 1441
Poe Haven, USA
6 posted 2011-01-17 08:59 PM


you write so beautifully and on a subject i love...this is a great wonderful poem...i enjoyed it so much!


Faith

There must be a poem in here somewhere.

Marchmadness
Member Rara Avis
since 2007-09-16
Posts 9271
So. El Monte, California
7 posted 2011-01-18 03:01 AM


You write so well on so many different subjects, Diana. Love the way your mind works.
                             Ida

Lori Grosser Rhoden
Member Patricius
since 2009-10-10
Posts 10202
Fair to middlin' of nowhere
8 posted 2011-01-18 11:05 AM


Music has less to do with listening with your ears than it does feeling with your body and soul.  Loved this.
Lori

OwlSA
Member Rara Avis
since 2005-11-07
Posts 9347
Durban, South Africa
9 posted 2011-01-18 04:11 PM


Thank you, Steaven.  I am glad you enjoyed it.  Blush, blush, I think we play a little baseball in South Africa.  I don’t know much about sport.  I played netball and hockey at school, love gym classes and rode horses most of my life, and kept fit on nature trails, but that is about it.  Sports channels on TV don’t call out to me much, but, thanks!  I am glad you felt it was worth a home run!  Smiles.

Thank you, Eric.  I am glad you could relate.  

Thank you, Jerry.  I loved what you said about music and words.  Languages can be beautiful too.  I think French and Zulu are two of the most beautiful flowing languages I have heard.  I wrote a poem about the sound of the names of Japanese gymnasts in a team and an African language from north of our borders I heard a woman speak on TV, features largely in another poem of mine.

Thank you, Karilea.  Yes, music certainly does cross so many barriers.

Thank you, Trina.  I haven’t heard Korean, but I met 2 young people who were Korean and I loved their accents.  Talking about accents, I love listening to accents.  I wish I could collect them and bottle them and let the genie of any language of my choice out to listen to and then put it back into the bottle to savour whenever the fancy takes me.  I love languages too.  My first language is English (my mother was Scottish and my father was South African English and his grandparents or great-grandparents were from England).  My husband was Afrikaans.  I am fluent in Afrikaans and French.  I speak more Zulu than the averge white South African, and I have a tiny smattering – or I did many years ago – of German.  I bought a book at a book sale called Teach Yourself Russian, and got as far as the alphabet and (probably bad) pronunciation years ago.  I would love to find the time to work through the book.  I did Attic Greek as part of my degree, but of course, that wasn’t spoken Greek, but I loved that passionately.  I play the piano (badly) and it is one of my favourite instruments (along with the flute and the harp and several others), but I think that to be able to play the guitar must be wonderful, especially because it is so portable.  Enjoy learning Korean and the guitar, as I am sure you will.  

Thank you Faith, for your very kind words.  I am glad you enjoyed them so much.

Ida, you honour me with what you say and you have made what is left of my evening!  Thank you.

Oh, I do so agree with you Lori.  The ears are merely the means through which the music fills the body and soul.  Thank you.  I am glad you loved them.

Owl

Rex Allen McCoy
Member Elite
since 2000-01-30
Posts 2863
Sippin a Timmy's in London
10 posted 2011-01-18 04:39 PM


I have always loved music ... especially instrumentals. where I can settle into my easy chair and let the music set my mind adrift.

I do some of my best sleeping that way ... (dreaming)

OwlSA
Member Rara Avis
since 2005-11-07
Posts 9347
Durban, South Africa
11 posted 2011-01-18 07:42 PM


Yes, Rex, music massages and soothes the soul.  

Owl

The Lady
Member Rara Avis
since 2005-12-26
Posts 7634
The Southwest
12 posted 2011-01-19 12:25 PM




you speak the music of the spheres
with your poetry Diana
and this poem is especially lovely...


s1nfully_1nn0c3nt
Senior Member
since 2003-10-26
Posts 1105
Watertown, NY
13 posted 2011-01-19 06:46 AM


Wow, Zulu, and German?
I've been told that Russian and German are two of the hardest languages to learn.
The Piano, It would probably take a lifetime for me to master, even the basics of piano playing, only cause I can't seem to recognize which key is which ha they all look the same Thanx Owl

-Trina
Life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim.
-Bertrand Russell

OwlSA
Member Rara Avis
since 2005-11-07
Posts 9347
Durban, South Africa
14 posted 2011-01-19 06:58 AM


Thanks for your reply Trina.  No, German is very easy.  There are lots of rules, though, but that makes it so much easier.  I would think that Korean would be very difficult.  I had heard that Chinese is possibly the most difficult language to learn.  I would think that English must be very difficult to learn as a 2nd language - grammar and pronunciation rules seem to have more exceptions than regularities!

Piano keys are what you see is what you get and a lot easier (for me) to get to know than guitar strings.  You guitarists seem to create magic and a million notes out of so few strings - far too difficult for me!

I have no idea whether Russian grammar is difficult as I only got as far as the pronunciation which seemed pretty straightforward to me.  The alphabet (though fascinating) has similarities with Greek which I was studying at the time, and was, in fact, one of the things that attracted me to the book in the first place.

Owl

nakdthoughts
Member Laureate
since 2000-10-29
Posts 19200
Between the Lines
15 posted 2011-01-19 07:07 AM


"The ears are merely the means through which the music fills the body and soul."

so true...and I think music also touches...I certainly can feel it.

M

OwlSA
Member Rara Avis
since 2005-11-07
Posts 9347
Durban, South Africa
16 posted 2011-01-19 07:11 AM


Kate, I missed your beautiful reply.  Thank you, I am very honoured.  Your responses are so often so exquisitely poetic and this one is WOW!

Owl

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