By CHRIS LENOIS

After last week, I really wish I were a better musician. I’ve taken guitar, piano and clarinet lessons at various points in my life. Most recently I’ve taken up the saxophone. I just couldn’t resist its lure once I moved to the New Orleans area three years ago.

I took lessons for a while. The main thing the teacher tried to show me was how to move beyond the notes on the page. Something that runs contrary to my duty as a writer to try and put the exact correct notes onto a page.

If I were a better musician I would have a better outlet for the grief brought on by last week’s homicides within the Roy family. As a reporter, I have a proximity to tragedies that have little to do with me personally. My job is to translate that experience into something other people can understand and process, regardless of their proximity or distance from the subject matter. To effectively do this, I need to present facts and let them speak for themselves.

If I were a better musician, however, instead of words I would have sounds. Sounds have less fixed meanings than words. Thus they are more interpretive of emotions. Think about any song you happen like and how it’s as much the melody, or how one single part of the song maybe, makes you feel like you’re soaring across the sky.

One of the most perfect notes for me is the high ‘G’ note hit by jazz saxophonist Cannonball Adderly in his rendition of “The Song Is You.” It’s the highest note he hits during the song, and the way he plays it takes the song’s frustration of not being able to express its feelings to its subject matter and releases them into euphoria. I know it’s a high-G because I have the sheet music, and I’ve my darndest to try and make that sound mean the same thing when I play it. The lyrics are printed on the sheet music as well. I have no idea what they are.

Today I dedicate that high ‘G’ note to St. John the Baptist Parish. May it help release the grief by the tragedy of a Garyville man who felt that such a terrible act of violence was his only answer.

May it heal the families of Chiquilla Cook, Brian K. Leach, and Wade Perilloux. All killed in automobile accidents last week. All apparently not wearing their seatbelts.

For the St. John School system struggling to provide safe and progressive schools. A task made more difficult by the demands of an economy that makes essential benefits like health insurance an astronomical burden.

For the parish council and administration. Their bi-monthly meetings are the best free entertainment in town. Someone asked me recently if I had ever seen a parish or county try to do as much with so little at their disposal, and I could not dispute it.

In “Song of Myself,” Walt Whitman wrote “The pleasures of heaven are with me and the pains of hell are with me. The first I graft and increase upon myself, the latter I translate into new tongue.” Keep that in mind the next time you’re hearing the favorite part of your favorite song.

CHRISTOPHER LENOIS is a staff reporter at L’Observateur.