The music... the legend.

On Wednesday, Prof. Sexson asked us to think about the greatest musical moment in "history". Well I thought about it. A lot. And there are simply too many to say for certain one moment outshines them all. Perhaps the first moment the first instrument was played for the first time is the greatest....for in that moment, all those to come is contained. What of Mozart? And Beethoven? Playing for their first concertos at six or seven. This is the stuff of myth! How about the jazz musicians in Harlem playing their smooth rhythmns before an ever increasing, astounded audience? And of course, we cannot forget the ever immortal Elvis Presley. But before Presley, there were others, like him, bravely setting out and making their music despite all the naysayers, against all the criticism. How about when Johnny Cash, musical superstar, finally married the love of his life, the also musical June Carter? So much myth is contained in their story to be sure. There are the Beatles who took the world by storm; they must be mentioned too. How can we choose a single moment to sum up the entire course of musical "history"?

And what of all the anonymous music makers around the world? Those sweaty jungle beats of the Serengeti, the hypnotic strum of an Indian sitar, the sweet, piercing melancholy of a Japanese trill... What of the lives behind the music we never hear? The young thug who finds music remakes him. The mother softly humming to her child. A new band's very first gig. How can we measure and equate all such mysteries in a single span of time?

We cannot. Or at least we shouldn't. For each experience, each singular moment in time, is part of a great and incomprehensible legend...or myth.