Resolve: firmness of purpose or intent; determination.
to convert or transform by any process
Music. to progress from a dissonance to a consonance.
I've had my word for 2014, resolve, picked out since way before New Year's. I guess you can see how much resolve I've had for writing about it, I still struggle with whether I have enough left to say on this blog. But then today I was visiting the mmabsers message board and a friend of mine there had copied and pasted an old post of mine from early 2011, All Out War when I was still struggling and I didn't think I was strong enough, or smart enough or anything enough to win the war. She said, and other members chimed in, that it was an inspiration to them to see where I'd been and where I am now.
Well, golly, I guess I better keep writing.
I've had this post planned out for weeks, I was going to explain how having resolve or employing resolve was different than just making a resolution, how I wasn't going to get bogged down in goals and accomplishments. I just wanted to have more resolve, dammnit!
Then I went to look up the definition of resolve, yep, those first two are exactly what I wanted, then I got hung up on the third one, the one that defines resolve as a musical term that means the transition of dissonance to consonance. Wouldn't it be great if I could find a song that sounded exactly like what I wanted my whole year to look like? Something with just a little dissonance and long periods of consonance, or something that started out with a short prelude of dissonance and then segued into a long ballad of consonance.
I have spent, I'm not kidding you, six freaking hours looking for that song. I started out with the Stones and the Beatles and ended up with Sebelius Symphony #7. I don't know why I didn't think of it right off the bat.
Not!
I'll admit it, I googled the "best example of resolution of dissonance."
Is it what I was looking for? No.
It's perfect.
It is a symphony of life. It has dissonance through out the whole freakin' twenty-five minutes. But with the flick of a wrist, a single breath, a slide of bow across string, the harshness transforms to deep beauty, strife builds to glorious triumph, and the deepest sorrows give way to frivolity and carefree joy.
I'm still listening and I don't know how it will end, but it doesn't matter. A baby will cry, a leaf will turn, a star will fall and it will all start over again.
Such is life.
Such is life.
Happy Belated New Year, Amigos!
Nice post! And nice word, Kary! It's funny in a way, my word this year is sort of the opposite of the first definition of yours. Ha! Life is crazy, right?
ReplyDeleteMy word this year is "trust". This year I'm going to keep working on relaxing my grip on the reins a little. I've come to see that a lot of my discontent is from my efforts to control things that, in the end, I honestly have no control over. Letting go and trusting that the universe will handle most (if not all) situations without my help is difficult for a old perfectionist-agnostic-control-freak like me. LOL. But little by little (kicking and screaming, practically) I've been convinced of the necessity of doing so. It's not easy going through life being responsible for everything...Sigh. And it's obvious to me that every time I relax my death-grip on a situation, everything has turned out okay, and my heart gets a little lighter--and that's all good. :)
Lulu
I know exactly what you mean, sistah! I was sitting and talking with a friend last night and said, "I need to learn to sit back and let things happen they are supposed to instead of getting impatient and jumping and mucking things up." Except I didn't say mucking.
DeleteKary! Kary, thanks for the music. I hate to nitpick, but you posted alibi to the Sibelius Seventh, but your text says you found your word in the Sixth. Just to complicate matters, most folks only know the Sibelius Scond,and it's a wonderful listen, too.
ReplyDeletePlease forgive me - I'm a professional musician with a great deal of social unawareness. Maybe my word should be "aware" LOL!
Sheesh! That post of mine is all garbled. Alibi= a link. Scond = second.
DeleteGood eye! You know when I googled it, it said Sebelius # 7 was the symphony that had a good example of resolution of dissonance and that's what I searched for on youtube but somewhere along the line, going back and forth, I thought I saw Sibelius #6 and by then the cap'n was wanting dinner. lol Corrected. I'll have to go look up Sibelius # 2.
DeleteThanks for sharing this song!! I really love the word resolve. It offers so much! It can mean so many things! For me, a recovering addict, it's a way of life!
ReplyDelete