I believe that a music exists in things. I believe that part of the fun in life lies in finding the hidden melodic notions around the things we touch and feel—and the people we barely notice, but need.

I bought mallets with superball heads some years ago. With such a mallet, one can strike a metal bridge, a concrete post, or a mailbox—hidden deep within the substance of each is sound and melody.

Today I softly struck a small glass ashtray with a mallet with a rubber head. I recorded the resulting “ting” with a voice recorder, and then imported the file into my softsynth sawcutter. When I heard the sound, I could picture the .wave file, suspended in mid-air,
melodic and yet quirky. That ashtray, properly sequenced, is th melody you hear for this song.

I believe that all around us are sound files—.wav and flac and ogg and mp3. They want to tell us things about our world we would hear if we had the right mallet with which to strike. The things they would tell us would help us to hear those people around us we should be hearing, and help us to strike the blows we need to strike to create the right melodies.

It’s a miraculous process, carrying a mallet around, and striking things. So many things these days are plastic and cardboard, and lack the necessary ring of truth.

But if you just keep gently tapping things until you hit the things that really matter, then you get sounds so sweet that you wonder if you were really living before you struck them.

If I could give a gift, I would give the gift of sound, and let people share the notes they would share if only they had the right mallets.

If I could hear a voice, I’d hear a voice that moved me to act to bring out the sounds that neglect, despair, and domination have dampaned in so many people, who need so many gentle mallets to
bring out their hidden mixes.