falling into place

The act or idea of falling has somehow accrued a negative association—to many, falling connotes failure of some sort. But to me falling can be liberating: letting go of control, detaching from ego-driven concerns and priorities, and surrendering to gravity, if not to life itself... Music and metaphor are always linked, but we usually speak of music's meaning and its effects on us in generalities (i.e. "This is a pretty love song," "this piece makes me sad," etc.). While there is certainly nothing wrong with such platitudes per se, I get inspired when impressions of a more colorful, visceral nature will alight upon me, as in this afternoon: while practicing a particular passage in Rachmaninoff's Etude Tableau Op. 33 No. 8, in which the figurations vertiginously plummet downward, I was somehow reminded of the physical/psychological/emotional/mental/visual/poetic connotations of falling: the heady exhilaration of falling in love, the relief of descending into sleep after an exhausting day, the helpless crumbling to one's knees in despair or pain, the slapstick comedian's gutsy pratfall, the refreshing sensation of plunging into a deep pool, the momentous collapse of once iron-clad political regimes, the vertical lines of rain cascading from unseen heights, the heavy velvet curtain swooping down to the stage at the end of an act, the ruddy sun setting and dropping into the infinite horizon, the shedding of illusory facades to reveal the heart of the matter...

OK, so maybe these are pretty generic after all, but my point is that the labyrinthine notes on the page and washes of sound can hold the key to our exterior and innermost realities. So let's fall into music in all its mystery, power, seduction, and limitlessness.