A CHOPSTICKS CHRISTMAS#
Soul Snack 235/14 ... Music's hall-of-fame added an anonymous young lady in 1877. Penning a waltz under the pseudonym Arthur de Lulli, Euphemia Allen prescribed an unusual method of performance.
Her waltz was not to be played with the ten fingers. Instead, the two-part harmony was played with fingers together. Palms faced each other; and the piano keys were only hit by the down-facing sides of the smallest finger. The keys were to be struck in a chopping motion. Today this waltz is known as ‘chopsticks’.
Seeping thoroughly across western society 'chopsticks' has become a native tune. We’ve grown with it and smiled at it countless times. Even 'musical luddites' (such as I) recognise the simple beat.
But familiarity breeds contempt; the original intent and uniqueness is lost.
The Chop Waltz is notorious for its light-hearted nature. It has become a cartoon ditty, or the music of the incompetent - ‘the song people play when they don’t know how to play piano’ – but this was never the original intention. The chop waltz is still that - a waltz, indicating sophistication. It is a melody devoted to dancing couples, not to a mindless cartoon.
Can you see the difference between chopsticks, and the waltz? Can you see the contemporary parallel?
Similarly a diminished, widespread misunderstanding pervades Christmas.
The truth of God's descent to earth is now diluted to obscurity.
The difference between yesterday's nativity and today's Christmas only multiplies the gap between today's cartooned chopsticks and yesterday's ballroom waltz, for:
- the manger is shaded by marketing,
- a babe is blanketed by Babylon and
- celebrations are now the end in themselves.
Christmas is now a celebration lived between the creator's intent and how the world thinks.
As chopsticks is unique to the pianist's hands, the birth of Christ is eternally more unique to the Christian's heart.#
Today's Soul Snippet:
"Christmas means the Light OF the World is now the light IN the world." ~ Michael Cartwright
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#with the deepest of thanks to Aaron Hogan whose research and efforts first wrote and inspired today's SoulSnack