‘Now then,’ I hear you say, ‘it’s been a couple of weeks since Nick last posted one his ‘Reasons to be cheerful’, so has he run out of good things to say?’ Not a bit of it; the only reason I haven’t added a further post to the series is that I’ve been so snowed under with work – busier than any point over the last year – that I’ve simply not had time to compose one.
A fourth reason to be cheerful, though, is in fact playing merrily away in the background as I write these words; namely, one of Mozart’s wonderful violin concertos. That may not be to your taste, of course: you may prefer modern music: pop, disco, folk, county and western, jazz, rock ’n’ roll, techno or the like; or, if you’re into classical music, your penchant may be for Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, or the more avant-garde offerings of Schoenberg, Ravel, Britten, Prokofiev or Honegger. The point though is this: we have a wonderful and musical rich heritage able to move, inspire, uplift and delight us; music for all occasions to animate the body, lift the spirit and thrill the soul. And today, through such media as Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple, YouTube, Alexa and a host of others, we are able to access and enjoy it as never before. We need simply to click a button or issue an instruction, and our favourite piece is playing, whether on our radio, tablet, PC, portable speaker or phone, among many others, and with a quality of sound that our forebears would have marvelled at. So then, if you find you have time on your hands (how much I wish I had!), lie back to a soothing lullaby, dance to the beat, sing along to a smash hit – whatever takes your fancy.
One of my own all-time favourite songs is the wonderfully catchy ‘Thank you for the music’ by legendary Swedish band Abba. The words of the chorus say it all:
Who can live without it? I ask in all honesty
What would life be?
Without a song or a dance, what are we?
So I say thank you for the music
For giving it to me.
The gift of music – something we can all enjoy, even if we’re locked down in the confines of our own home. Definitely a reason to be cheerful, in my book.