The Unifying Force of Music

The Unifying Force of Music

Music brings people together…

 

The unifying power of playing music in a group can help to dissolve differences between nations and bring about a common understanding and appreciation of diverse cultures.

 

It is not simply the playing of music together, but the time spent together, especially during break times, discussing our differing cultural practices and, very importantly, eating cake.

 

A violinist friend once told me that she had taken her violin to the luthier to overcome a problem with lack of resonance. He told her that he had successfully resolved the problem by removing rather a lot of cake that had fallen through the ‘f’ holes. He advised her to avoid eating cake with the violin on her lap in future.

 

Yesterday was our string quartet practice session hosted by our violist who happens to be Danish.

 

Nothing focusses flagging concentration more than the words “Let’s go through this one more time and then we’ll have a break.”

 

During our breaks over the years we have found that, although Denmark and England are geographically close, there are certainly some minor cultural differences which are very interesting to discover.

 

Yesterday we were discussing Christmas and the decorations and food that accompany the festivities and how these differed between the two Countries.

 

During this conversation our (English, with French heritage) first violinist picked up the small jug from the centre of the table and poured a substantial amount of the contents onto her piece of cake.

 

Our Danish violist host observed this action with keen interest.

 

“I’ve just poured milk all over my cake!” exclaimed our first violinist.

 

Our Danish violist host nodded and looked expectantly for an explanation.

 

“Yes, we sometimes do that on the second Sunday of the month.” I said “It’s a very old tradition.”

 

“That’s right!” agreed our first violinist “It’s called ‘milking the occasion.’”

 

“I see” said our Danish violist “I thought perhaps you were protesting because I hadn’t provided cream to go with the cake.”

 

We all laughed uproariously, and fully refreshed, continued playing wonderful string quartet music together.

 

Music, laughter and cake - all strong contenders for the universal language.