Sometimes Music Just Happens

Standing on the high stoop of the new house, surveying the new neighborhood, appraising it now as a member, I hear a car alarm go off. A simple, deep beep…beep…beep, laying down a bass drum beat.

At the stoplight, sound is leaking out of one cars’ rolled up windows, a complicated high-hat trill of latin music, smoothing right over the car alarm beat.

Then, the mosque around the corner sets off its call to prayer, the minor-key free floating vocals swirl like smoke, and thread all the sounds together.

And there it is, urban car alarm, latin percussion, muslim prayer, the sound of my new neighborhood.