Poems and Thoughts    by Frank Maurer

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Musical Similarities Over the Centuries. As I have written, music has been a huge part of my life. I was listening this morning to the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, Celebrating his 31 March 1685 birthday, soon to come. His winding, polyphonic, continuous musical-cadence sounds Suddenly connected the musical sounds in my head To other similar styles--at least for me-- Which have the same continuous flow, if seemingly different sound. The first which comes to mind are Amish hymns, Which I heard during a Sunday service in a midwestern, Segregated by sex, temporarily cleaned out barn. Their singing took me back to the Khoisan (Bushman) people Who sang for me one evening in the Kalahari with their profound magic. Another important musical type for me is the beautiful Continuous sounds of Scottish classical bagpipe pibroch style. My mind then jumped to the similar continuous sounds Of electronic music of my teenage years. There are so many composers of our time with their own such style-- The 12-Tone System of Arnold Schoenberg, for one. All of these continuous styles from many centuries Require attention and concentration to fully appreciate. This is perhaps why our today's listeners are not capable of a full acceptance-- Our society now needs more and more instant gratification, Which allows such music to be purposely ignored in our minds. We need to play such music in our homes to our children, So that such musical history is not lost to the common sounds of the masses, And studied only by the esoteric musical scholars! (Dear Readers--explore the genres presented here in a few minutes--not too fast, And partake in beautiful musical styles which took me decades to discover!) Frank Maurer 24 March 2024 1020 Hours.