Music to My Ears: A Senior Reflection

By Scout Wallace

After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing
the inexpressible is music.
-Aldous Huxley

All my life, I’ve listened to music. I imagine most students and staff at Hanover High have, and would be very surprised if others told me they hadn’t. However, unlike most others, I expect, the music I’ve grown up hearing came from my community.
     Although it may be true, I’m not going to make a huge metaphor about how the voices of community members were so meaningful to me or how they’ve taught me all I know. In fact, I’m thinking quite literally in how the tunes of which I’ve taken note during my lifetime, I’ve heard mainly from my sister and brothers, my church’s choir and my schools’ choruses: from my neighbors and friends and family.
Late at night, I can still hear my sister’s rendition of “Amazing Grace” on the violin. Although she has been away at college for over a year now, the melody resonates. I feel the echoes of my eldest brother’s instrument, after his train-tempo performance of “Orange Blossom Special” or the ragged Scott Joplin pieces my mom plays on the piano: they sound like maple leaves falling from an autumn tree, as graceful as a ghost.

     And this is just the music I’ve heard at my house. All around me, I hear music, and I listen. Even the breeze on a surprisingly warm fall night creates a melody fit for Kings to dance to.
And then there’s Hanover. The high school possesses and presents a never-ending song. Again, I could be making a fantastic allegory for the flow of students in and out of school, highlighting each of their interactions and personalities. However, I have chosen to stay quite literal as I write this. The music starts on a Monday morning with a small combo in the Band room jamming to a percussive beat, or maybe it starts with a few trumpeters playing “Reveille” out the windows to the science and social studies hallways before the Pledge of Allegiance has been stated. Then, of course, it ends, again with a trumpet trio serenading the football team with the National Anthem before a Friday night home game, only to be drowned out soon after by cheers and calls anticipating the action.
     During the week meanwhile, we hear many noises coming from all around the school, like a friend spontaneously bursting out into song, or whistling through the hallways, or fiddling for a social studies class. Drums echo. Saxes reverberate. “La La”s perform. Cellos resound. As I said earlier, it’s a constant stream of music, one work to be finished perhaps never.
     This type of music I’ve listened to all my life, and I hope it will continue indefinitely. I hope everyone in the world will be able to listen to the dynamics and the rhythms I’ve been so lucky to hear. I hope they will all pay close attention and realize that the notes ringing in their ears are their notes. I wish we all would understand the impact of this universal language, and how, despite its uniformity among greatly differing cultures, each note – each word spoken – means something unique to each individual. Those who choose to listen have the opportunity to see a new light. Those who do understand the raw power it controls: It is the soul of language, and the language of the soul.