I'm coming to believe in the importance of silence in music.The power of silence after a phrase of music, for example: the dramatic silence after the first four notes of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, or the space between the notes of a Miles Davis solo.There is something very specific about a "rest" in music.You take your foot off the pedal and pay attention.I'm wondering as musicians whether the most important thing we do is merely to provide a frame for silence.I'm wondering if silence itself is perhaps the mystery at the heart of music.And is silence the most perfect form of music of all?Songwriting is the only form of meditation I know.And it is only in silence that the gifts of melody and metaphor are offered.
Contemplative life is the putting together of vision and action. Vision alone, meditation alone, is not true contemplation. We must put vision into action. Not just monks, but all of us are called to contemplation in this full sense. If we want to live healthy lives, we have to build into our daily life moments of vision, and let our actions be formed by that vision.