When I was younger, I learned the magic of musical notation. The ability to read and write music is like learning another language. Musical notes have their own rhythmical value and, depending where they are positioned on a stave (five black lines which become the musical ‘page’), their own pitch. Creating a system for ordering this enables people across time and geographical boundaries to communicate with each other.
Many people can listen to and sing or play music without any theoretical knowledge of this (just as literacy is no necessity for communication – speaking and listening skills develop long before any understanding of reading and writing.) Literacy skills do, however, open a door to a wider world of communication, and it’s the same with music. The greater fluency we want to have in any language, the more we’ll work at developing our skills in communication in that language.
Just as a child learns to read monosyllables like ‘cat‘ and ‘dog’ before progressing to polysyllabic words like ‘antidisestablishmentarisanism’ and uses phonics (a method of teaching people to read by correlating sounds with symbols in an alphabetic writing system) as the building blocks to understanding the language, so the music student learns names for rhythmic values (minims, crotchets, quavers and so on) and names of notes positioned on staves. Maths comes into music as well, for rhythm uses maths to break down timing values (the linguist in me loves the fact that German obligingly gives mathematical names to these values, calling a demisemiquaver a ‘Zweiunddreißigstel‘, a 32nd note, which one wit says is ‘the longest name for one of the shortest notes’!)
Because rhythm can be extremely varied, this language can at times be as simple as monosyllabic words (counting to 4 is not exactly difficult) or as complex as polysyllabic words (different note lengths, tied notes, dotted notes and so on.) The score (written account) of a simple song is like a child’s ‘ABC’ book; the score of a Beethoven sonata more like a Shakespeare play!
Timing is crucial in music, adding variety and interest to songs and compositions. Yet just as it requires fluency to read more complex stories, it requires understanding to read more complex scores of music. Many of us find timing in our Christian lives hard to read as well. Why does God make us wait so long? (Ps 13:1) ‘Reading’ God requires a lifetime of practice, and even then, as Tim Hughes puts it, God is ‘in every way above and beyond understanding.’ (‘Almighty God,’ Tim Hughes)
Many of our difficulties in life arise because we are not skilled in understanding God’s thoughts and ways, especially relating to timing. We’re still at the 1-2-3-4 stage of counting when He’s dealing with minims, crotchets, quavers, semiquavers, demisemiquavers and beyond, not forgetting the importance of rests (all of which have their own musical notation!) We believe that life is lived at one pace only, not understanding that variety and silence (rests) contribute to the overall texture of life, as well as music. There is tremendous freedom in understanding that God’s timing is different to ours, as Aaron Shust says:
‘When the time is finally right,
Will You open up my eyes, show me all the things You want me to see?’ (‘To God Alone’, Aaron Shust)
God works when the time is fully right (Gal 4:4, Ex 2:24). Our job is to try and ‘understand the times.’ Music is a great way to learn to fathom variety and mystery; whether we learn to ‘read’ it or not ultimately doesn’t stop us enjoying or appreciating it, though. But understanding God’s timing matters a lot; learning to wait for God is an essential part of spiritual growth. Our willingness to be led by the Spirit of God – not running ahead impatiently or lagging behind truculently – matters enormously in practical realms, not just theoretical ones. Reading God’s timing stops us fretting or anxiously manipulating circumstances; we are free to embrace the time as it is and enjoy today (see Eccl 3:1-11).