The Lost Chord

I struggled to find the right chord for my New Year blog. This is after all a season of joy and hope and Jennifer Lopez cavorting in a body stocking in the freezing rain in Times Square. It is not a time to be pensive.

But I am, after all, the Blended Learner. One who seeks the truth. For sentient members of the learning profession and most of the people we serve, the truth is that 2009 was an annus horribilis. 

But how do I say this while cheerfully ringing in the New Year? 

As I recalled more sanguine moods of yesteryear, my search for the right chord became a quest for the lost chord; and that led me a song written by Sir Arthur Sullivan around New Years Day in 1877. 

The Lost Chord

Seated one day at the organ,


I was weary and ill at ease,

And my fingers wandered idly


Over the noisy keys.

I know not what I was playing,


Or what I was dreaming then;

But I struck one chord of music,

Like the sound of a great Amen.

It flooded the crimson twilight,

Like the close of an angel's psalm,


And it lay on my fevered spirit


With a touch of infinite calm.

It quieted pain and sorrow,


Like love overcoming strife;


It seemed the harmonious echo

From our discordant life.

It linked all perplexèd meanings

Into one perfect peace,


And trembled away into silence

As if it were loth to cease.

I have sought, but I seek it vainly,


That one lost chord divine,


Which came from the soul of the organ,


And entered into mine.

It may be that death's bright angel


Will speak in that chord again,

It may be that only in Heav'n

I shall hear that grand Amen.

That's almost it: the harmonious echo of the lost chord. But I didn't like those allusions to death and angels. They're authentic because Sir Arthur wrote this song at his brother's death bed. But for the Blended Learner, New Year is not an occasion for mourning or longing for another world like Pandora.

This is our world and our mission is to make it better.

If 2010 is going to be a much better year, we'll need a song that honestly begins solemn and then soars above the clouds of things past into the white radiance of future possibilities. 

After several false starts I got much closer to the lost chord in a poem by Thomas Hardy. It was published on New Years Day in 1901. 

The Darkling Thrush

I leant upon a coppice gate

When Frost was spectre-gray,

And Winter's dregs made desolate

The weakening eye of day.

The tangled bine-stems scored the sky

Like strings of broken lyres,

And all mankind that haunted nigh

Had sought their household fires.

The land's sharp features seemed to be

The Century's corpse outleant,

His crypt the cloudy canopy,

The wind his death-lament.

The ancient pulse of germ and birth

Was shrunken hard and dry,

And every spirit upon earth

Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among

The bleak twigs overhead

In a full-hearted evensong

Of joy illimited;

An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,

In blast-beruffled plume,

Had chosen thus to fling his soul

Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings

Of such ecstatic sound

Was written on terrestrial things

Afar or nigh around,

That I could think there trembled through

His happy good-night air

Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew

And I was unaware.

That's more my kind of music. With Hardy at my back, I can begin the New Year with a song in my heart. 

 I'm the guy who found the lost chord.

Comments

[Elliptical reviews]

No offense, but if there's a facebook like button, it'll be much easier for me to share.

[school_dubl]

Hi Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

[Music_master]

Hi I liked your note, add your site to your bookmarks.

[RamonGustav]

I think you have a thorough understanding in this matter. You describe in detail all here.

[Paul Johnson]

THAT was fun! What a great "opening exercise" for 2010!

I COULD contend that chords are never lost, just misunderstood (but, I don't feel like arguing today!).

For example, the opening chord to the Beatles' "Hard Day's Night." Do we REALLY understand what THAT chord is? Read the following fascinating analysis, and you'll not only understand the chord, but who "the fifth Beatle" was!

http://www.mscs.dal.ca/~brown/n-oct04-harddayjib.pdf