On blackbirds, silences, and eves.
I do not know which to prefer,
Wallace Stevens, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird, V.
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.
Wallace Stevens gave us two choices, but I’m not sure that I don’t prefer the third option: The anticipation of a blackbird about to whistle.
There is magic in the waiting…in the eves that come before the days.
In the same way, there is magic in the moment before the downbeat, when the audience and the performer are united in preparation for the music. Alice Parker describes this as inchoate silence, as compared to the silence of completion after a piece ends. But, while the preparatory silence may be disordered by comparison – we haven’t been united by the music – it is ordered in its own way; ordered by our shared anticipation.
This silence is made to be broken, but it’s worth spending just a moment appreciating it, and all the magic it offers.