Opinion: The pandemic’s repetitive patterns can be stressful and exhausting, but if compared to other repetitive movements like Bach’s work, individuals can find calm within the chaos.
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Just like the winding lines of melodies found in many of Johann Sebastion Bach’s pieces, the COVID-19 pandemic has followed a similar turbulent pattern. As a highschooler, I remember the shock I felt when I realized closures would be lasting longer than we initially thought. I am grateful for the reflective time the pandemic has given me, and yet I disdain the unrelenting wideness of time. It shows the slownesses and repetition of daily living.
Music also contains this revealing feature. It can slow down our lives with its romantic beauty; it points to the aspects of time that seem larger than the others. This parallel between the pandemic and music has helped me deal with the current circumstances.
Although pandemic events can easily be classified as unexpected and ever-changing, looking at them through a wide lens, the structure of when new variants come and their severity is quite repetitive. This is a huge factor in pandemic fatigue. Pandemic fatigue is the feeling of burnout in light of the continuous protocols, and this contributes to the repetitive style of COVID-19.
This repetitive style mirrors the music I’ve heard my parents play over the years. My mother has played through the Bach preludes on her viola countless times, and I have always been an avid listener. Now, I hear each measure in those songs as a pandemic regulation; my mother playing Bach has become the legs I use to walk through the tiring features of COVID-19.
Bach’s “Cello Suite No.1 in G Major” falls into a clockwork of arpeggios. These arpeggios are chords that get broken up and played in separate notes. Each note has an ebb and flow similar to a passing day. Tension is built, held and then released, mimicking my emotions surrounding the pandemic.
There has been this push and pull between the fear of the tactile world and the yearn for human connection. Living in a state of negativity can not be good for us. This intertwinement between the pandemic and this piece of classical music is how I’ve avoided this feeling of fatigue.
The prelude bases off of a pedal note, which is a continuous note that anchors the listeners to the key of the song. It is the heartbeat of the piece. In the pandemic, it reminds me there will always be some sense of self, and I can base my regularity off of my own heartbeat.
This idea that we can return to “normal” after the pandemic is reflected in the cello’s movements. Bach makes the instrument struggle while attempting to grab a different pedal note. This technique of crossing strings, known as a bariolage, creates disorder and chaos. After the chaos comes relief. The strenuous attempt is successful, and there is peace within this feeling of accomplishment. For me, this means rewriting the societal idea of normal. It might be messy and chaotic, but not making assumptions about what life will look like in the future helps calm the unreliability of the pandemic.
While it is extremely difficult to try and combat the changes we have adapted to since 2020, relating these patterns to beautiful things has shown me it is natural to feel the sometimes troubling rhythms of the regime. My pandemic fatigue is contested through music.
Emotions in music are made to reflect those of our own lives. While the pandemic has negated some of the loveliness of daily life, it has also summoned a new understanding surrounding the beauty of changes. The resolution of this pandemic piece may not have been reached yet. Or maybe the resolution is a different one than we imagined.
As this final chord rings, for me, that is a reflection of adversity. Amidst the challenges and changes, there is this finale of peace. My final chord lies in the acceptance of arduous circumstances; the open strings ring as I put my buzzing brain to rest. The circumstances of tomorrow have the chance to unlock beauty — similar to the changes I noticed today.
