In 2004 Ireland banned smoking in every workplace,
including pubs, restaurants, fishing boats and company cars.
The law has not just purified the quality of air for breathing but the quality
of music according to a recent article in one of Toronto's newspapers. In short,
the ban on smoking means that bellows instruments like accordions used by pub
musicians are producing higher quality sound.
The musicians have been able to clean up their traditional instruments, clogged
up with years of dirt in smoke filled pubs, so they can produce clearer sounds
in fug-free bars.
Writing in the British Medical Journal, John Garvey and colleagues found that
accordions played in smoke-filled environments when opened deposited dirt
through-out the instrument. Some repairers who participated in the study felt
that the deposits affected the pitch of the reeds. The doctors on the study
concluded that the smoking ban has been ¨music to the ears of the people of
Ireland¨.
We, human beings, are in part bellows instruments requiring purification on a
regular basis in order to grow each day a little more joyful, respectful,
generous, thoughtful and courteous to all beings.
Philosophy in the classical manner reminds us that purification is for the body
and for the soul, but it is much more for the soul sweeping away the impurities,
washing the crude emotions with elevated sentiments, letting the wind of wisdom
remove the clouds of ignorance.
