New Hobbies and other ways to waste my time.

So I am sure I am the last person to have discovered this but I have a new love. Wikipedia! I am sure it will lose it's shine and luster soon enough but I could sit on there all day just jumping around from topic to topic. I start one thread looking for the original lyrics for a piece of music my kids are playing and some how get to reading about the four truths of Buddhism. What a day.

So my original search did not actually produce anything useful. I enjoy having the students learn that sometime instrumental music have roots in language and that sometimes that language is striking at times. Example we are playing a wonderfully lush and beautiful piece called "Sleep" by Eric Whitacre. The original text it is based on is by Charles Anthony Silvestri, and is below.



The evening hangs beneath the moon,
A silver thread on darkened dune.
With closing eyes and resting head
I know that sleep is coming soon.

Upon my pillow, safe in bed,
A thousand pictures fill my head,
I cannot sleep, my mind’s a flight;
And yet my limbs seem made of lead.

If there are noises in the night,
A frightening shadow, flickering light;
Then I surrender unto sleep,
Where clouds of dream give second sight.

What dreams may come, both dark and deep,
Of flying wings and soaring leap
As I surrender unto sleep,
As I surrender unto sleep,
sleep,
sleep,

Granted it was originally a choral piece and that is so wonderful, but the wind arrangement is just great for bringing that emotional connection to the kids. Something that I never forget in doing music is that I so want others to get that feeling. The feeling when you are just enveloped in music and the sounds are all around you and you just let go and there is this burning in your chest and you want to laugh and cry all at once. It's like your spirit wants to leap from your body. The music has made your soul so big that you body just can't contain it any more.

It's just so hard to express that to students, well anyone really, so that is why I like to find these types of pieces. As a friend of my was saying that just letting people know that there are other ways to think is so important and I think that's true for letting people know that beyond that there are other ways to feel.