The Sound of Music

"If I had the wings of an angel, over these prison walls I would fly.  I'd fly to the arms of my darling, and there I'd be willing to die."  My daddy had a sweet, tenor voice and loved to sing.  I don't remember, but was told many times that he would walk his baby girl to sleep while singing "The Prisoner's Song," an unconventional lullaby at best.  That was my introduction to music.

I had two records (78 rpm) when I was a little girl and I played them over and over.  One was a precursor to today's audio books, a reading of "The Selfish Giant."  Not until I was an adult did I know it was written by Oscar Wilde.  I had no idea he wrote children's stories; I knew I loved it.  The other was a recording of Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf," in which the characters are represented by themes and individual instruments in the orchestra.  (The oboe was the duck, Peter was the strings, a flute represented the bird, and the wicked wolf was the French horns.)  I wouldn't know an oboe from my elbow if it were not for this music.  Record players back in the day had steel needles that wore down the grooves and made the sound scratchy.  I played "Peter and the Wolf" so many times the music was barely audible.

It is quiet in the barn.  We each have our jobs to do and settle into our work.  Then our theme songs begin to emerge.  The goats' rhythmic chewing is punctuated by the occasional stamp of a foot.  Milk hitting the bucket zings.  There is the occasional flutter of bird wings as a robbing jay comes in to steal grain.  Crows caw and hawks screech in the background and sparrows chatter in the dead tree just outside.  A truck rumbling up the dirt road is a timpani drum roll.  Every day begins with a symphony.  Not a bad way to start the day.