Being rubato in life

Crescendos and Diminuendos, Meditations for Musicians and Music Lovers

by Jack Coleman

During our choral practice every week, we have a short devotion before we begin based chapters from a book by Jack Coleman on Meditations for Musicians and Music Lovers. 

The topic picked for today was on the musical term Rubato. It means, “Robbing” or taking from the notes their strict time value by alternately hurrying, then retarding, for the purpose of expression. It should not depart so far from the tempo as to destroy the sense of rhythm.

I did not know that the rubato means to rob. And apparently it is not an easy thing to do musically and if we are not able to do it properly, its best to stick to the original tempo. 

But when applied to our lives, sometimes we may want to rob our timing and sequence of life a bit but we need to do so carefully so as not to depart so far from our tempo of life as to destroy our set sense of rhythm. And when we rob it we also need to return it like when we perform a musical part in rubato, we also need to pay it back in timing, and in the same way we need to compensate for it in life. 

I know...all very conceptual but if you think about it, may ring true in certain times of our lives. 

pearlie