Hearing

You know, before they are born humans can hear things,

long before they can make much sense out of them.

Then when they come into the world they hear all sorts of things

before they begin to understand words.

They recognise the different ways a voice sounds when someone is playing with them

and when someone is telling them to stop what they are doing

They learn to recognise all sorts of noises from their tone,

their rhythm, their volume or their melody.

They get to know all sorts of sounds around them,

like sirens, carhorns, engines, planes and helicopters.

They get to hear birds and cats and dogs, and other people.

And there are some things that they find pleasing to listen to,

and other sounds that they may not like at all.

And they like to take some kinds of noises and shape them into sounds that they like.

So they can hear the wind blowing in the trees, or around their houses,

but by using hollow tubes of different lengths they found they could shape the sound into separate notes,

like in pan-pipes or church organs.

Or they might do the same with one piece of wood with holes in different places that they cover with their fingers,

like a recorder, or a flute, or bagpipes.

Or with different lengths of metal tube,

like trumpets, trombones and saxophones.

The shorter the tube the higher the note.

And it worked the same way with strings.

Shorten a string and the note it sounds when it is plucked gets higher,

which is how it works with guitars and violins.

And all around them there are noises made by things banging together,

from the tap of a pen on a table top to the slamming of a door.

The steady pitter-patter of rain falling, to the clatter of feet running in a corridor,

or the bouncing of a ball.

Deep inside, humans know that their lives are always tied to the pumping beat of their hearts,

so they like to make that noise much louder.

So babies start with rattles before they move on to drums,

bells, xylophones and gongs,

all the things that they call percussion,

which basically means banging things together.

And of course, sometimes they use their voices

in a way that sounds like they are banging things together.

So put all those assorted noises together,

and you can end up with something they call music.

And music has power,

and like all things with power it can be dangerous.

It can make things worse as well as better.

What we hear leaks through to other senses and affects them,

what they hear makes them see and feel things through their imaginations.

So some things they hear might make them feel happy, and other sounds make them feel sad,

but all of it, the good and bad of it, is sent for us to learn from.

God gave us hearing so we can listen to the world around us

and listen for the beauty in it,

and try to make it sound more beautiful in whatever way we can