In part 1 of this rant, or musing, I began to explore the idea of the creative mind as a dream machine.

If the mind of a fiction writer or poet is a blender that receives sensory images, images that will be the key ingredients in the next story of poem, the mind blends these ingredients into something designed to delight and nourish, feeding first the writer and later the readers.

I also wrote about this dream machine as the rational mind, methodical and efficient, loud and self-important and in control, having banished messy emotions and wild and crazy and irrational love to the region of the heart.

A few days later I was fortunate to see a wonderful performance of The Sound of Music at Diamond Head Theatre. I already knew the story, so no suspense there. I had seen the Julie Andrews film version several times, and played and sung the songs for most of my life, so this was all familiar ground.

But I wasn't prepared for the emotional impact of the story, and especially the music, at a live performance. From the opening notes of the title song I was drawn into the beauty and emotions of the story, affected deeply, moved quickly to tears, as the music bypassed the rational and analytical part of me and went directly for the heart.

There's no hidden meaning in Oscar Hammerstein's lyrics. Maria sings, "The hills fill my heart with the sound of music ... My heart wants to sing every song it hears." These words, and the beautiful music of Richard Rodgers, bring our hearts along, at the very beginning of the story. "I go to the hills when my heart is lonely ... I know I will hear what I've heard before."

We see ourselves in these words. These familiar songs, along with Maria and the seven von Trapp children and the other characters who are like old friends, await us each time we return: "I know I will hear what I've heard before."

The most powerful words, and the spirit of the musical, come at the end of the opening  song: "My heart will be blessed with the sound of music ... And I'll sing once more." The power of music to bless us, to repair lonely and damaged hearts, permeates the story and carries it way beyond a feel-good family entertainment. At the end of the story it is music that saves the von Trapp family from the Nazis.

"But wait!" the rational mind interrupts. "I protest! Who did all the work here? Look at all the dream machines of  creative artists who took the von Trapp story and compressed it into a Broadway musical, all the creative choices that had to be made, all the details. Then more creative work to turn it into the spectacular musical film. Where was the heart then?"

The heart is in the work, of course. It's in the emotions and passions of its creators, who are, after all, more than craftsmen, more than machines. Just listen to Maria sing the soaring music of Rodgers and Hammerstein, whether it's Julia Andrews on the screen, or Sarah Juliette Halford at Diamond Head Theatre, and you would need to have very thick walls protecting your own heart not to be affected.

I suspect that like sunshine in the islands we take music for granted. It's all around us, some of it very good and much of it mediocre. The people in The Sound of Music, however, do not take music for granted. Maria, as a postulant at the abbey, is forbidden from singing except as part of prayers, and goes to her beloved mountains to sing.

The von Trapp children, when Maria meets them, are forbidden from singing by their father. Captain von Trapp is still grieving the death of his wife, who had filled the home with music. Maria teaches the children to sing with the song "Do-Re-Mi." Later, when Captain von Trapp finally does play the guitar and sing for his children (the patriotic "Edelweiss"), the moment is electric. (Yes, I felt more tears at that point, totally out of control!).

So there it is. Not surprising really, that we need both the rational, creative dream machine and the wild and crazy heart. For proof, we need look no further than The Sound of Music.

Tags: Diamond Head Theatre, Julie Andrews, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Sarah Juliette Halford, The Sound of Music

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 18th, 2010 at 8:49 pm and is filed under Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.