Tuning to Each Other

I was in marching band in high school. We spent a lot of time tuning. We tuned in the band room. We tuned on the field at practice. We tuned at the start of the football game and then again before we took the field to perform our show. Often, we had no true pitch to tune to. We all played the same note, and tuned to each other. And once, my band instructor said that even if every single person was out of tune, you could still hear the perfect pitch hanging there in mid-air. And tune to it.

How can perfection come from a universal imperfection? One out of tune person can't tune to himself. It would be hard to get it right with two, or three, or a handful. But with the whole band, with a big crowd of people all, a little bit flawed, but all listening to each other, all trying to get it right, all adjusting, the perfect pitch emerges.

Whenever I hear a lot of wrong notes out there in the world, I like to think that if we just choose to make music together, even if we are all a little off key, eventually, together, we will get it right.

By UserB - Own work, GFDL 1.2, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1529663