Years after reading Stephen King's novel
Lisey's Story, what still sticks in my mind is his wonderful portrayal of the marriage of the main characters, with a particular focus on the power of language in their relationship - a thousand little phrases, pieces of lyrics, jokes, and other words that were shared between them and took on inside meanings that only they understood. Apparently others thought so too, the
Washington Post review states: "In fact, one of the great charms of this novel is King's attention to
the private language of affection: the silly phrases, lyrics, puns and
pet names that Lisey cherishes as signs of their intimacy". And music was a key component, certain songs evoking long-ago memories, or pieces of lyrics became incorporated into greetings or jokes.
Music has always been a wonderful and major element of our relationship, also shaping the cadences and rhythms of the shared language of our marriage. When we first met, Matt had years of piano lessons behind him, and had recently been taking guitar lessons. I played a litany of wind instruments and was learning to play the guitar. He always had more patience than I, and would practice complicated pickings for songs he enjoyed until he could play them fast and well. I was more content with strumming basic chords, mostly to add another "voice" to what I enjoyed most - singing. Without the structure of playing in bands, our primary instruments today are the guitar and an electric piano of Matt's and as always, singing. Matt's taste in music has always been a bit more eclectic than mine - I would be more apt to learn a new song from a narrow selection a favorite radio stations, whereas Matt was always picking up new songs and bands from all over the place.
With the invention of Pandora, the ability to find new artists that had a similar "sound" to favorite songs or bands became even easier (though I still was managing to mostly find new British bands or female folk singer-songwriters, and Matt was bringing home cds of Swedish alternative bands, British techno, or American bands with piano-driven ballardists). I enjoyed playing classic rock and modern music at work with the "HisGen Band", playing guitar and singing with Sam and Jean on the library floors when the building was closed to the public, or jamming in an oversized closet (which had great acoustics!).
Matt, a video game programmer with a great love of video games, was very happy to have me discover a favorite game to play together - Rock Band (always a bit harder to wail on those drums or project some of those songs in apartments with neighbors above and below us). Our current apartment seems to be surrounded by music, though. A pianist practices everyday two doors down, and in the evenings, sitting on the balcony we often hear acoustic guitars and faint singing filtering through the open patio doors of other apartments. So we add our music to the mix, playing Pandora or iTunes and singing aloud while we cook dinner, or strumming a favorite song on the couch.
