Katrin Pensée
The Gift of ¾
“Life’s a dance. Some people walk through it gracefully, while others take two steps, one step forward, two steps back.”.
Unknown
¾ is a time signature that is used in music.
There are 4/4, 6/8 and other time signatures.
¾ is a waltz, a dance and whimsical beat.
When you are struggling, perhaps stop and ponder this lovely beat.
One two three, one two three, start a little waltz.
Sing a little tune like Johann Strauss.
He wrote The Blue Danube Waltz to lift his Viennese compatriots spirit.
Their country had been at war and endured a lot.
He wrote this little tune to give joy to their tired hearts.
When life has you down and not in a ¾ time frame.
Do a little waltz to regain your equilibrium one beat at a time.
Have you ever danced a waltz? Have you seen someone waltz? The dance is so graceful to the strains of a time signature of ¾. To those who are not familiar with music, each piece of music has a time signature or a beat if you will. Musicians follow this beat to allow the music to have symmetry and marked time. It would be an addled mess if each musician just picked how they were going to count the music that they were reading. The only time that this would be remotely easy would be if it was one musician who was not accompanying people dancing. Just like the musicians counting, the dancers are counting as well. If you have never heard the Blue Danube waltz it is quite beautiful. It was written by Richard Strauss II in 1866 to bolster the spirits of the war-trodden Austrians. They had just lost the seven week war to the Prussians, a particularly low point for the country. Strauss based the waltz on a poem by Karl Isidor Beck, each line ending with “By the Danube, By the Beautiful Blue Danube”. As with most artists they took some liberties with the Danube actually being blue because as we all know most rivers are not blue. When the waltz was first unveiled the response was quite muted from the Viennese. This was a little disappointing to Strauss. Strauss did not give up, he took his piece to France at the World Exhibition and it was an immediate success. The piece garnered so much praise that the printing press had to print over one million copies for the piano! That is a lot for the year 1867. The waltz is much like life. The count is one, two, three. The rise and fall of the meter can be likened to the ebb and flow of everyday life. How can you change your life from a piece with no real time signature to a beautiful waltz? By counting what joyful and meaningful beats are in your life. There are many varieties of waltzes. There are at least sixteen (if not more), the American Waltz, The Estonian Waltz, The Peruvian Waltz to just name a few. Sure, there are some that are in odd meters such as 5/4 and 8/4 but there is still a dance that is graceful and sometimes a little weird yet melodious. The most popular and enduring waltz is that of the Viennese, in its beautiful ¾ time. Find your meter, find your waltz and dance the dance of life. “The journey between who you once were, and who you are becoming, is where the dance of life really takes place.” Barbara Delungio. We will stumble, we may even lose the beat but lets pick ourselves up, say a little one two three and start to dance again.
Source:classicfm.com
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