What can I say?
What sort of language can I use to say
how I feel today?
Even my thoughts
scattered like pennies in a wishing well,
words could never tell.

The music speaks for me
as only music can.
It turns my heart into melody
and captures so perfectly what I could never say.
The music has a way.

What can I do?
How can I trust you with my secret fears,
or let you see my tears?
Try as I might,
I’m at a loss for words and yet I long
to say it with a song.

The music speaks for me
as only music can.
And when my tongue trips and hesitates,
the music communicates when words will never do.
The music speaks to you.

– Philip Silvey

For this composition, the music came first. I often compose this way, with musical ideas developing through improvisation at the piano. I remember as a young teacher returning from a choral festival with middle school students. After everyone had gone home, I sat alone at the piano in the emptied classroom, playing through some of what became this song. In a sense, the piano allowed me to make my momentary feelings audible. Music does that for me and for many others, I suspect. I am grateful music gives voice to what I can’t always bring myself to say.

Duration: 3:00