The Ukulele Entertainer by Ralph Shaw

Author:Ralph Shaw
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: BookBaby
Published: 2011-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

SILENCE IS MUSIC

Where I describe how to master the technique of not playing, which is not used nearly enough.

Nighttime in a cottage on the Gulf Islands, off the southern coast of British Columbia, can be very hushed. Lying in bed at night, I marvelled at the serene and eerie quiet of the night. There was literally no sound.

As I lay there listening, I became aware of a machine in the distance. It bothered me that somewhere out there was an artificial source of booming, echoing noise that could be heard by so many people. Without it, whatever that sound was, I felt that the silence would be absolute.

The sound wasn’t loud but it was regular and continuous and was starting to annoy me. I put earplugs in my ears. The pounding sound continued. I gradually realized that the pounding was the sound of my own heartbeat. I had been listening to the blood coursing through my own head.

The quote “Music is the silence between the notes” is one of those sayings that doesn’t seem to mean much at all. Yet, at the same time, if you choose to ponder it longer, you can find an infinity of meaning in those seven short words.

It is actually quite rare to have silence in any piece of music. There is almost always something going on. Even a solo instrument playing alone has an overhang of sustained sound when there is nothing being strummed, struck, pressed or plucked.

The above quote is by Claude Debussy. Since there is really no such thing as silence (not inside my head, at least), one has to wonder what exactly he was getting at. I’m thinking that when he said “silence” he was actually talking about a pause of activity. A piano note is struck, but before playing the next note there is a moment of nothingness. Musician and listener hang together in the same space before the next note comes along to guide their thoughts and feelings.

You don’t hear much silence when a typical ukulele player is happily plonking their way through a song. And there is great joy to be had in that regular beat, the thrilling strum-strum-strum that provides the background sound of a well-known ditty. The ongoing, never-ending rhythm that goes on and on and on all the way to the end of the song is a rhythm as relentless and unceasing as my heart, beating as it does to keep the life-giving blood flowing through my head.

I’ve heard it said that musical rhythm at a basic level imitates the beating of the heart. Perhaps this is why, to me anyway, so many ukulele players look as if they might actually keel over and die should they cease playing in the middle of a song.

I suggest to you that not playing your ukulele is a valuable and much-underused playing technique. Elsewhere in this book (“Make Your Ukulele into a Pianoforte,” page 8), I talk about how changing the volume of your playing is probably the simplest technique of all.

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