Anyone can argue that classical music is dying. There are not too many interested in the soft harmonies that speak louder than any metal song ever could. Or in the deliberate and precise key notes that create tunes capable of making you go back to your childhood once more. Back to those days when everything made sense, when life was simple.
I go back to the sun, warming my skin and dancing in the back garden. I take my brother’s hand and make him dance in circles with me, until we’re both so dizzy that when we try to walk in a straight line we bump into each other and laugh hysterically, because somehow we don’t care about common things like balance. And as we fall down, our mother and father come to us, a smile brightening their faces while they pick us up and hug us in an embrace warmer than the sun.
I recall a time, not too long ago, where one of my writing professors was talking about why the words “what you said hurt me” are so powerful. He asked me if a loved one told me this, how would I feel. I said I’d feel bad. Why?
It’s not only because I might’ve hurt someone I care about, but because those exact words strike harder than they should. It is in the simplicity of the words and how accurate they are, that fills a person with guilt. The same happens when we do something wrong and when we expect our mom or dad to yell at us, they say instead, “I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed.” Now, do you wish they’d scream their lungs out or, if they preferred, slapped you? Of course you do. Because those six words are the last thing you’d ever want to hear your parent say to you.
It’s not in the words themselves, but what they represent. They are shame. They are a finger pointing at you, telling you how terrible you are and how horrible the things that you’ve done are. But in the same way, a simple “good morning beautiful,” can make all the difference. There’s no need for a dozen red roses along with a giant teddy bear and a string quartet to all come to your house, while he wears a tuxedo and plays Taylor Swift’s ‘Love Story.’
As I listen to Yiruma’s ‘River Flows in You,’ I can’t help but become paralyzed at such a reassuring song. The up and down notes going faster and faster, and steadily slowing down, the cycle repeating itself all over again.
The notes’ simpleness astonishes me. The song could be of life itself, how fast it came and will go. A condensed human existence and its decay is all told in a mere three minutes. To think that such an entrancing song came from an instrument that has only 88 keys. But Yiruma has managed to use these few keys and create a grand piece of art that’ll always remind me that classical music will never die.
