John Bird
// Author, Editor & ResearcherJOHN BIRD is an author, editor, researcher, and writer from Iqaluit, Nunavut, Canada. His book “The Spirituality of Music” (2008) is available from Wood Lake Books, local bookstores, and Amazon.com. John Bird is an award-winning journalist with over twenty-five years experience as a writer with The United Church Observer and The Catholic Register, and as editor of Anglican Magazine, Catalyst (Citizens for Public Justice), and the book “Nation To Nation: Aboriginal Sovereignty and the Future of Canada” (2002) available from Irwing Publications. John is also founding member of the Ontario band SwingBridge. He now lives in Iqaluit, Nunavut, where he plays with The Road to Nowhere Band, sings in the Iqaluit Community Choir, and is always happy to jam with whoever will have him.
Website: www.woodlakebooks.com
Photo: John Bird
Interview:
Music is about heart. The pulse of our own hearts and the rhythm of life that beats in the heart of every living thing. When we play music, or sing, dance, or listen to music, we align the pulse of our hearts and souls with the pulse of our fellow musicians and composers, whether they are performing with us or for us. An active listener can be as much a co-conspirator in the musical process as any fellow performer.
We align to the rhythm and hum of the wood, gut, steel, brass, skin or even plastic from which the vibrating instruments have been made – and with the spirit of the crafts-persons who fashioned them. We align to the pulse of the spaces in which the music is played. We align to the loving heartbeat of the ultimate author behind the music – and behind all life – however we may conceive she, he, or it to be. The music, when we open our hearts and pay proper attention, both takes us deeper into ourselves, and out of ourselves into an encounter with that which lies beyond us.
“Music is about heart. The pulse of our own hearts and rhythm of the life that beats in the heart of every living thing.”
– John Bird, author of “The Spirituality of Music”
