Takumai's Tune: Music on the Road to Enlightenment

The young man took a deep breath and looked into the audience. The silence was deafening, even though there were about seventy people in the small theatre. Mostly men and women, but also some children and older people. Everybody sat on their seats, waiting for him to start singing his song. He heard the faint sound of a bird hiding in the roof, but other than that, it was quiet.

Finally, he started singing:

“Far away from the village,

Underneath a tree with flowers white and red,

Lay a maiden who was sleeping;

And her slumbering shadow lay like a fairy thing

On the grass and flowers where she lay;

Down by yon riverbank my love has gone,

She's left me broken-hearted all alone, ”

He sang with passion. The song made him feel nervous. There was no reason for him to be nervous, but the silence of the audience made him feel that way. Nervousness made his voice shaky at times, but he kept going. His eyes wandered around in the crowd as he moved his arms up and down during the chorus:

“And I would I were with her!

The night is dark and I am far from home;

I would I were with her!

Let her kiss me till my heart grows bold;

For oh! She has stolen my heart away! ”

He had chosen this song because it featured a woman who lied to her lover pretending she was asleep when she wasn't. The man in this song was known as ‘the melancholy lover’ or something like that. He remembered it because his mother had told him about this man when he was a child. She had been happily married to his father for many years until he passed away a few months ago. That had been very hard for both of them. They had always enjoyed listening to music together, so ever since then songs like these gave him comfort because they reminded him of his father and mother when they were younger and still together. He wanted to share these memories with others who might enjoy listening to music as well. A few moments later he finished this song and took another deep breath before starting again: