I look for the harmonies in everything. I say ‘everything’ because that is exactly what I mean. In music, I can hear all levels, and way below the melody. I can hear above too, but could never reach those notes without a long ladder. I was never a descanter, unlike my sister whoes vocal chords are wired to the moon. In any music situation I find myself following the supporting chords, finding them, latching on and, eventually, finding my way. Even hymns in church offer me opportunities, even as I feel for my pew fellows as I duck down into the melle of the many lower levels of any good music. I remember, as a child, knowing exactly when any piece of music was about to find resolution. I knew, still do, when a modern song will end, and you might laugh at that because if you are in the know, pretty much everything is 8 to the bar, 8 counts, unless you challenge that, and writers do. I laugh when I meet it, in music, in prose, even on the street or in the bar. With confidence, someone just stops and goes, having said something profound and without a single cap-tap to propriety, leaving the rest of us with vacant faces and puzzlement. Composers and good writers have done this many times and I see it in musical score, in good books and there is something fizzy about them, like the best champagne. Intriguing. I love rebels.

I made myself walk today, along Tapselteerie tracks. I haven’t walked since my daily sunshine ones in Africa. Every morning we set off, about 8 or earlier, to avoid the sun heat. Sometimes we left it too late and it wasn’t only the golden retriever who found it too much. That sun is careless of his power, blazing down, no breaks, relentless. I loved it. As we found rivers, water holes, ditches, anything water-logged for the hotdog to find relief, I stood on the bank, watching him courie down through scrub and boulders to the water flow, the cool base note. It thought me. I stand here, like the top note and in between you and me there are so many levels, tricky to contour. The base note is the river flow. So much opportunity between us. If I could cant the in-between, make it fit, sing it out, give it instruments, the flute perhaps, then violin, maybe two, then viola, then cello, then, if really brave, double bass. Such depth.

When I was there, in Africa, we went to a candlelit concert. Vivaldi, Four Seasons. It was wonderful. The (unusually) quartet sat among 200 candles on stage. It was a beautiful show. However we came away a little questioning. I had seen this performed before but with the Basso Continuo as fifth instrument and it was definitely missing, the base, the low voice, the resolution. Stu felt the same but without my musical training and having never seen such before. It was a feeling of lack. But this is not about music.

In a life, in any life, however ‘small’ or ‘big’ the whole dynamic is essential, and when the melody is lost or the baseline, then there is a void. In my experience, over years of providing harmonies to visiting bands, I knew about the middle bit. Nobody wants it because why? Well, nobody honours the viola, the chorus, the second violin, the timpani, nobody. They are just support, but woe betide them if they fail to perfectly perform. I honour the middle instruments.

The wives who keep onkeeping on, finding food, walking miles, working from below dawn to above sunset.

I honour the men who work hard in jobs they hate just to provide for their families.

I honour the ones who lost their place because nobody showed them how to find it.

I honour those who believe that they will only ever live in the middle of musical score, or in the worlds of prose.

In those who believe they will never make an impact.

Tell you this, all of you. Believe in yourself and take that self forward. You are so much more than you think.