Michael stood with his eyes closed and his hands raised above his head. He took three slow deep breaths. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do, so I just stood there watching. I could tell that this was a sacred place to him, and I waited for him to tell me about it. I especially wanted to know about the carving in the rock. Instead, when he was finished breathing, he sat down on top of the carving as if it weren’t there and pointed across the river.
“Look,” he said, “through the trees. That is an area called Mound Bottom. It was a sacred place used by Native Americans hundreds of years ago. Some of those natives still come back to that place today.”
I didn’t know if he was talking about living Native Americans or spirits from the distant past. I hadn’t seen many Native Americans in Nashville, so if spirits were still hanging around, I wondered how he could know. Could he see them? Feel them? Or was he just playing with my mind again? He was supposed to be teaching music anyway, so I didn’t ask.
I counted thirteen different sized mounds surrounding one big mound situated in the middle. The big one was said to be at least twenty feet high. They were spread across a broad open field, and from our vantage point, they looked as if they were but small bumps on the land. It was hard to believe that they were really that large.
"Those are notes, big notes,” Michael said, nodding across the river to the mounds.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Signs left by the native people. Those mounds are like big notes, but you have to be far away from them in order to read them as a group. Tom Brown Jr. is a tracker, so he would call them tracks. I am a musician, so I call them notes. If a good tracker can tell a lot about the people who left those tracks, a good musician should be able to do the same.”
After a few minutes of musical mound contemplation, Michael broke the silence.
“Reading tracks is like reading Music, just as making tracks is like making Music. There is no way to move across the landscape without leaving tracks. It matters not whether it is a natural landscape or a musical one. Every time you move, and every time you play a note, a piece of yourself is left behind. There is no way to avoid that.
“Now, the tracker,” he explained, continuing to gaze upon the field, “if he is a good one, can see right into the soul of whoever left the tracks. The tracker can tell what the creator of the tracks was thinking, feeling, doing, and more. A good musician should be able to do the same. To learn how to do that takes time, dedication, and intuition, but since you can read Music already, it should come to you easily.”
I’d heard of reading palms, tea leaves, hair follicles, and eyes, and Brown’s book even talked about reading tracks, but never before had I heard of reading music, at least not in this way.
“Take a good look at these mounds,” Michael instructed, waving his hand across the horizon. “Seeing them as a whole is a lot like looking at a piece of Music. A good reader can get an idea of what a piece of Music sounds like just by looking at the whole chart. Now, to get more detail from the Music, we need to move closer. Let’s go!”
Without hesitation, he took off running down the hill. He bounced down the small mountain like a deer, and I tried my best to keep up. By the time I made it to the bottom, Michael was already crossing the river and heading over to the mounds. When I finally caught up with him, he was standing on top of the large mound which, I now noticed, was flattened on the top forming a small plateau. From this vantage point, we could clearly see how the smaller mounds were situated in a horseshoe shape around the largest mound.
"The key,” Michael stated.
“What?”
"The key, you found it. You are standing on it. Can you see how this mound is like the key center of a piece of Music? Everything else is here to support this larger mound.”
“I see,” I replied, struggling to understand. “Let me try. The large mound we are standing on is like the key of the song. All the other mounds are here to help define what that key is. This large mound had to be established first before the other mounds, or, let me say the other notes, could be placed. It’s clear, standing here in the center, that the smaller mounds are here to help support this larger one. So relating these mounds to music, I can see that the first thing to do is establish a key. How was that?”
“Very good,” he answered. “But like I mentioned before, the first thing might not be the key.”
“Right, the groove, but in this situation, we’re talking about mounds. Wait a minute! Are you saying that the Natives first established a groove before building the mounds?”
“Yes!”
“How so?” I imagined native people dancing to the music while building the mounds. I knew that wasn’t what he was talking about, but I couldn’t make the connection, at least not yet.
“What did they think about before placing the mounds here?” he asked.
I tried to come up with an answer, but the pure act of trying seemed to push it away.
“I don’t know.”
“You search for answers the way you search for notes. Let go of the need to be in charge,” Michael instructed.
I didn’t quite grasp what he was talking about, but I did try to relax. It didn’t help. I still couldn’t find the answer.
“Can you give me a hint?” I asked.
“Tomorrow we will build an exact replica of this mound in your back yard. Okay?”
“Why?” I asked, not following his logic.
“Finally! I thought you would never get the answer.”
“What are you talking about?” I was really confused.
“You don’t even get the answers when they come to you. Maybe you are more pitiful than I thought.” Michael lowered his head. I could tell he was trying to conceal his laughter by the way his head bounced.
I threw my hands up in frustration. “I still don’t get it.”
“Why!” Michael blurted.
Feeling more than frustrated, I had to keep myself from shouting. “I don’t know why.”
“No, listen; they needed a why, a reason before they placed the mounds. They didn’t just decide to place the mounds in this specific area one day. They had a reason for doing it. Then they decided where to place them. Where to place the mounds is the key. Why to place them in the first place is the groove.”
“Okay, now I get it.” I breathed a heavy sigh of relief. "That should’ve been easy. Of course they had a reason to place the mounds here. They needed the reason ‘why’ before they decided ‘where’ to place ’em, and not the other way around. I understand that clearly now.”
“Yes, and now you can see how purpose was their ‘groove,’ right?” he asked.
“Yes, I can. So, what was their purpose for placing the mounds here?” I asked.
“Let’s look closer and see what ideas come to us.”
He reached in his waist pack and pulled out a handful of Popsicle sticks. I had no idea what they were for. He started walking around the large mound poking the sticks into the ground. By the time he was finished, there were rows of sticks going up and down the mound in all directions.
“Look here. What do you see?” He was pointing at the ground.
“Grass,” I answered, only half joking.
He got down on his knees and motioned for me to do the same. Placing his hands in the grass, he parted the blades carefully. "Think Tom Brown,” he suggested.
I answered immediately. “A track, I see it.”
“Yes, deer tracks on top of the mounds out here in the open,” he replied as he stood up. “Each one of these rows of sticks marks the trail of a different animal coming to the top of this mound.”
“I see the sticks, but I’m having trouble seeing the tracks,” I admitted.
“If you were in a room and tuned your mind to the color blue, every blue thing in the room would jump out at you. All you have to do here is tune your mind to the appearance of the track I just showed you. Then, like the color blue, the rest of the tracks will appear.”
> I knew what he was talking about. I’d done it with colors many times before. I could cause myself to recognize any color in a room just by thinking of that color. As soon as I would focus my mind, everything in the room that was even close to the same color I was thinking of would stand out. By focusing on a different color, I could cause that color to stand out. I decided to try it with the track.
I looked down and focused on the deer track at our feet. It was a shade darker than the rest of the grass. I unfocused my eyes and looked around the mound using my peripheral vision. To my surprise, I could see rows of little dark circles all over the mound.
“I see ’em!” I exclaimed.
“Of course you do. There are animal tracks all over these mounds. Tell me this. Why do you think these animals are risking their safety to come here? There is no food or water here, and on top of the mound, they are out in the open where they do not like to be. What draws them to this location?”
“Maybe there’s something here for the animals that we don’t see,” I answered.
“Precisely!” Michael responded with excitement. “And maybe there was something here for the native people too. And maybe there’s something here for us, but we just can’t see it. What we can’t see, but know is there, is usually called what?” he asked.
“Spirit,” I answered.
“Exactly! Spirit, the sensed, but unseen. Music is the same. Can you see Music? No? Then what is it really, I ask you?”
I’d heard of the idea of music being spiritual, but he put it in a way that made sense to me.
All of a sudden, without waiting for me to answer his last question, Michael ripped off his boots and took off down the hill running on all fours like an animal. It was a hilarious sight. He bounced up and down, back and forth. Turning and darting like he’d lost his mind, he scampered all over the mound. I’d seen squirrels act like that but never a human.
I could see the enjoyment on his face. His eyes beamed like a young pup’s, seeing his first snow. It looked like fun to me too, but I didn’t have the courage to join him. After removing the Popsicle sticks from one of the rows, he laid them down beside each track, then motioned for me to join him near the bottom of the hill. Of course, I walked.
“Look,” he said. “Musical manuscript.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“If you allow the track to become the note and the stick to become the stem, each track will look like a musical note. You can then read the animal’s gait pattern like a piece of Music.”
“Cool!”
“Also,” Michael added, “noticing how the animal’s feet ‘attacked’ the ground will tell you even more about the animal. Usually, the sharper the attack of each foot, the shorter the length of time it spends on the ground. This is a lot like Music.”
I’d learned from the tracking book that gaits were how you could tell whether the animal was moving fast or slow and that looking at the edges of the track could tell you about the animal’s direction and intention. After Michael showed me how to read each group of deer tracks like a measure of music, I could do just that. I could tell instantly that the deer was galloping if the tracks sharply hit the ground in groups of four. Tracks in groups of two meant that the deer was moving more slowly.
It came to me suddenly that the same is true in music. Four notes in a measure versus two notes in a measure lets you know how quickly the notes are moving, even at a glance. The fact that the deer ran across the field but walked on top of the open mound let me know that they were comfortable there.
Paying attention to how the distinct edges of deer hoofs hit the ground enabled me to tell in advance when the animal was going to change directions. I had no idea how Michael could predict those direction changes before he showed me what to look for. Now that I could do it, I felt like Sherlock Holmes.
He showed me how to tell which way an animal was looking, based on how its feet hit the ground. He also told me that if we looked deeper into the tracks, we could look deeper into the track maker. Michael believed that many internal things could be discerned about an animal or a human by studying his tracks. I didn’t know what he meant by ‘internal, ’ but what he’d already shown me was enough. Being able to tell so much, just by looking at the ground, seemed magical to me. I could only imagine what it must be like having the ability to do the same thing by listening to someone’s music.
A sad person often plays music in a minor key, while a major key might suggest a happy mood. That, I already knew. I could even tell when a person was extremely nervous just by listening to his music. Maybe, like tracks, music is a doorway allowing one to peek into a person’s spirit. The thought of that was really intriguing. I was excited to learn more.
"This is a spiritual place,” Michael spoke, after we galloped our way back to the top of the hill. "The natives know it. The animals know it, and now, you know it.”
“But what’s your proof? How do you know that this is a spiritual place, more than any other place?” I inquired.
“Proof? What is proof but someone’s perspective? And tell me, what importance does proof have anyway? Did you learn from the experience? Now, that is important!”
“But what makes it more spiritual than any other place?” I asked.
“I didn’t say that this place was more spiritual than any other place,” he continued. “I said that it is a spiritual place and the natives know it. Think about this. You looked at this place from high atop Mace Bluff and you saw beauty. You then came and stood atop the largest mound and you saw beauty. And now, you look into the mound at the tracks of the animals that walk across her face, and still, you see beauty. Now close your eyes and tell me what you see.”
I did as he asked and again saw beauty.
“Good. From four different perspectives you have viewed this wonderful place, and each view has generated the same feeling—beauty! How can you be wrong?
“Beauty is something you experience, not something you prove. Can you tell me what beauty is, or can you only give me your perspective on it? Can science define beauty? Can you see or touch it, or can you just see and touch something that possesses its quality? Beauty is invisible, individual, and intangible. Interesting, isn’t it? It is something you know, yet technically, it is not there. How can this be? Like Music, it lives inside you, and you impress its qualities on whatever you choose.
“People have spoken about beauty for centuries. A wise man in the 1800s once said: ’The beautiful is that in which the many, still seen as many, become one.’ There is truth in that statement, but in simpler terms it could be stated as another wise man did. He wrote, ‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty.’ That is easily understandable.”
Standing up straight, he spread his arms wide and closed his eyes.
"The Natives knew and still know that this is a spiritual place because they choose it to be, and you have chosen the same. And nestled here in the bend of the beautiful Harpeth River you can see why.”
He quickly opened his eyes and leaned forward asking me one last question.
“If this place is beautiful, and ‘beauty’ is invisible, then what is this place?”
"A spiritual place!” I exclaimed.
"Thank you! Now we can go.”
MEASURE FOUR
Technique
Are you using magic?
Yes, I am. It’s called technique.
I was speechless. I stood there for a moment letting his words linger in my mind. A breeze blew across my face as he turned and walked away. It chilled my skin. Somehow, I felt, his words were connected to the breeze. I can’t explain it, but it was as if his message was carried through the air and into my ears by the wind. And like the wind, it hit before I could see it coming.
The Music Lesson Page 7
