Music Comes Before Words

Music. Music runs through all of My Father, Humming. It ties everything together.

I think of the book as one poem, which is, in itself, a piece of music.

Poets and writers deal with words. Music is what comes before words. We all listen to music of one kind of another. It connects us to something deeper in ourselves, something more basic and lasting.

Music connects us directly to the “chi”—to our spirits, our souls.

The vibration of a string—on a piano, a violin, a guitar—aligns with our heartbeat, and with the blood moving in our veins. The changed air produced by a wind instrument is the music of breath.

Music is life. We don’t have to figure out what it means. We listen to it, or make it, and we are inside of it. And in it, we connect to the universe, and to ourselves.

My Father, Humming is a piece of music about Alzheimer’s, losing a loved one, as well as love and healing.