“Do you have perfect pitch?”
“No, but I know what’s not in pitch.”
I tried to explain to my friend that while most musicians might not have perfect pitch - a largely genetic ability to identify or play back any note, with no reference whatsoever - they can, over time, develop an approximate feel for pitch. For me, it’s only when I’m tuning my violin. I can’t sing an A back to you from out of thin air, but I’ve tuned an A string so many thousands of times that I can feel when it’s out of tune (that is, of course, where A = 440Hz. We can talk about decolonising notions of ‘good’ and ‘correct’ music another day!). I say feel, rather than hear, because it’s to do with the frequency at which the string should vibrate against my body. A violin is such an intimate instrument to play because violinists hear everything through the jawbone. The sound travels to our ear canals from outside our head as well as through our mouth, reverberating against our teeth along the way.
As such, feeling the vibrations and learning to make repetitive micro-adjustments over many years of practice is one way to develop an approximation of perfect pitch.
In Chinese, the word for music is 音樂; yīn yuè (Mandarin) or jam1 ngok6 (Cantonese, my father tongue). 音 = sound, 樂 = happy. The latter word is the same 樂 as 快樂, kuài lè or faai3 lok6; how we wish everyone a happy birthday or new year. And the same 樂 as 大家樂 (‘everyone is happy’), the name of an iconic Hong Kong fast casual food chain.
Music means the happiness of sound.
Actually, what if I told you that the the Chinese word for happiness itself means music?
The earliest Chinese script, which dates back to the Shang Dynasty (at least 1000 BC), shows that the ideogram for happiness comprised two strings on a piece of wood.
These two strings are represented by 糸 (‘skein of silk’, interchangeable with radical 120) - the original strings of Chinese instruments were made from twisted silk - and the pictogram 木, radical 75 or wood. Somewhere down the line, a 白 was added between the two strings, possibly to represent a thumb.
Happiness, from the moment we found ways to write down our language, was notated thus: two strings and a piece of wood. Happiness and making music were synonymous.
And, when you think about it, even before the first seven-stringed, plucked guqin / 古琴 was invented 2,500 years ago, we were all in possession of another two-stringed instrument. That was our original voice: two vocal folds vibrating inside our larynx. Two folds which, with the skilful manipulation of incredibly small but powerful muscles, could soothe children or shatter glass. Could coax and beguile grown men and then break their hearts.
Society is so desperate to sell you happiness. Happiness is… an iPhone 14, a Gucci bag, Lululemon pants, the butt that Lulus give you, a better Insta filter, a lash lift, a brow lift, a tit lift, low interest mortgages, the luxury gym membership, a package holiday, a 10th floor apartment, a 22nd floor apartment, a penthouse, a peerage, a pay rise, a promotion, a promise, empty promises, it’s something that’s always around the corner.
Not for me. I #quietquit your pre-ordained Happiness Programme.
Happiness is… a horsehair bow and four strings, resting on my body. Or steel wires strung across an iron frame, inviting the caress of my ten fingers. Happiness is singing, pure singing. Singing alone or singing with friends. Happiness is a vibration. Happiness is laughing! Ha, ha, ha! Radiating through my torso and my mouth, to your mouth and your torso; from one body to the next.
I don’t need perfect pitch in my life - either to play music or to be ostensibly ‘happy’. What I do know is how to take care of myself on days when I’m feeling off; when I’m not vibrating at 440Hz. It starts with listening, with all my senses and all my body. After a while I play my favourite music and dwell in the happiness of sound. As people nowadays are prone to say with only a hint of cynicism, “Good vibes only”. If only they knew how right they could be.