It’s Oh So Quiet

A quick little post from me this morning.

My children have gone back to nursery/school this morning and the house is so very quiet without them! There have been times over this last 3 months when I have longed for some time alone, a break from the amazing amount of noise they can make, a little freedom to do the things I needed to do. Now I have it, for however long it lasts and who knows how long that will be, and I feel a little lost in the silence. No fights to referee, no bumps to kiss better, no one squiggling about on my lap, no one to cajole and plead with to do their school work, pleeeasse!

3 pieces of music popped into my head as I was doing the vacuuming (I may be trying to slightly reclaim the house for a bit) and I wanted to share them with you today:

It’s Oh So Quiet- Bjork

This song from Bjork that was released in the mid 1990s was one of my favourites way back when. It’s about falling in love of course, but the lyrics are so apt. And the music is so apt for how I feel at the moment as well. It is oh so very quiet here, and when the children return this afternoon they will arrive in a burst of shouts and singing and fighting until bedtime.

The Sound of Silence – Simon & Garfunkel

I’m going for literal this morning, just because of the shock of the quiet house after 3 months of almost continual noise. So of course one of the songs that popped into my head this morning had to be Simon & Garfunkel’s The Sound of Silence

4’ 33’’– John Cage

4 minutes 33 by John Cage is apiece of experimental music. It was composed for any combination of instruments with the score telling the musicians not to play their instruments at all throughout the 3 movement piece that lasts under 5 minutes. It is a piece of music that aims to challenge what we know of as music- is music a melody, is it a collection of notes, is it the absence of sound, can music be found in the sounds around us in the absence of distractions.