Melody and Harmony
- 8 hours ago
- 4 min read
I was in the backroom of a weathered, wooden bar with low ceilings. It was a fairly tight space. Cigarette smoke floated in the air. That wood had soaked up vast amounts of beer. Combined with the cigarette smoke, it gave the place a familiar and permanent scent. Odor might be a better word. Booths lined the walls, and the sounds from the neighboring pool tables were in the background.
My two friends, Kevin and Colby Logan, were playing acoustic guitars and singing from the stage in the corner. I was only beginning to appreciate how they blended their voices together. I opted to close the bar down with the Logans and all of our friends, once again ruling out my attendance at the 8:00am class the next day.
That was at Texas A&M over 30 years ago. In all that time since, I’ve been lucky to play music and sing with Kevin and Colby many times, always trying to soak up some of their talent.
A couple of weeks ago I was chatting with Kevin (aka K-Lo). We talked about how good it would be to meet up and play some music, and Kevin threw out a meet-up at their family’s lake house. In a quick look at calendars over the next couple of months, we both were pretty stacked up with stuff…but the next week just might be possible. So we rallied Colby and got it booked on short notice!
After our time together, when I got home, Stacey asked me how it was. In short, it was just right. Time with old friends, shared meals, remembering old stories, listening to and playing lots of music.
And there was something in the physical experience of it all that mattered too. I don’t know much about somatic therapy, but I think my time with Kevin and Colby was some of that. My limited understanding of somatic therapy is that addressing physical tension can also ease the mind.
While with Kevin and Colby, we spent some time playing around with a few songs, breaking apart how multiple vocals come together…how different harmony vocals join up with the melody vocal to form something more. It’s much of the magic of The Beatles. Anyway, there’s a bunch of musical theory behind that, of which I know enough to be dangerous.
Kevin and Colby are so good at picking out all the intricacies of the melody and harmony. Together we would sing through one line of a verse or chorus, over and over again, experimenting with different combinations of blending the vocals together. We would do that for each line, finding how the vocals fit and don’t fit.
There’s a certain resonance you can hear but can also feel in your body when it all comes together well. And the wrong notes definitely jump out too…I’ve got a knack for finding those way more than Kevin and Colby. But when the right notes, the right frequencies, blend together, it can feel like way more than just the sum of the individual notes.
I realize and have increasingly appreciated that resonance isn’t just about sound and music. Throughout the journey of the last few years, and with cancer clearing out a lot of distractions, I’ve been fortunate to have and to notice feelings of a deep, resonant interconnection. Interconnection with the people and spaces around me. Interconnection with something much bigger at work all around me.
I think resonance is a useful metaphor for pointing at this mysterious and deep interconnection. There are experiences in my life that resonate like a melody and harmonies blending just right. Laughing together with old friends. Supporting and watching a young person learn something. Listening fully to an elder’s wisdom. A meal at the table together, even when, especially when, the conversations might be tough. Serving others. Doing hard things together. Connecting with a stranger, as if they are the only other person in the world at that moment.
These experiences land in the body just right. They resonate. They are healing. They feel authentic. They can hold us when we are lost. We feel them more than we know them. The knowing of that divine interconnection is more than just some cognitive exercise. It is embodied.
The learning and work for me continues to be to heed the wisdom in my body, because it also lets me know when things feel out of tune. I suppose the word for that feeling of being out of tune is dissonance…which can be helpful in that it stirs up a felt sense that something needs to change.
What’s wonderful is that the right notes are always there…that deeper resonance of interconnection and love is always available. Can we clear the distractions and all the B.S., get present, and make more space for it? The wisdom of our body will let us know if we have or haven’t - the resonance or lack of will be felt. And when that resonance hits, let’s notice it, point it out, share it, and just sink into it.
Wishing you deep, life-altering resonance…
Matt
(Here’s another fun example of some harmony vocals…feels like some auto-tune in there, but whatever. Maybe it’s all AI these days??? Anyway, a good example of how it all comes together! And can I get a hell yeah for some Toto?)
For the heck of it, including a few pictures of making music with the Logans and others over the years. Had a little too much fun looking back through these!
Awesome!