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[Editor's note: A correction ran concerning this story; see end of article.]

The human ear is capable of hearing incredible things when it just listens. Electronic musicians, for example, have spent the past few decades composing the most complex overtures out of sampled sounds heard in kitchens, classrooms, and doctors' offices. You may look at a certain location and deem it unsuitable for field-recording work. But then the yawp of that environment swirls past your tympanic membrane, through your eustachian tube, and suddenly: symphonies.

There's music all around us, resounding in times and places we might have previously ignored. On Friday, February 15, G.R. Anderson Jr. found it at a converted White Castle in the middle of the afternoon. Photographers Tony Nelson and Diana Watters found it in a pawnshop and in the basement of a bowling alley at daybreak. Writer Paul Demko heard it during the evening from a singing stripper at Sweeney's Saloon. And a dozen other writers hunted it down in bars and nightclubs and radio stations. Britt Robson listened as it echoed from the I-35 bridge off the banks of the Mississippi in the deepest hours of the night.

What follows is an hour-by-hour account of one day in the life of local music. In some Walt Whitman instant, we each had our own active-listening epiphanies. And from those moments came this song.

--MELISSA MAERZ, MUSIC EDITOR

6:38 a.m. Friday, February 15
Morning prayer, Masjid Al-Huda Mosque, Minneapolis

I'm an agnostic kneeling prostrate on a rug among a dozen Muslims, literally headed toward Mecca at the crack of dawn. For everyone else in the sparse, low-ceilinged room, this is a matter of life and afterlife. For me, it's musical tourism, a good excuse to hear the entrancing chant of a muezzin in a holy setting.

The muezzin, up in front with his back to us so he too can be facing east, is chanting the 87th sura of the Koran in the time-honored fashion. There is a drone and a lilt, a guttural smudge, an extended note, silence, and then again. Occasionally we answer with a long "aaaahhhh," an Islamic version of "Amen." Taking my cue from the rest, I stand, kneel, and prostrate, touching my nose to the carpeted floor.

"Of course, the Koran is not about music, it is about faith and a way of life," says Mohamed Abdalha, who kindly sought me out in the room where we retrieve our shoes. Politely suffering the fool, he reads me the English translation of the sura we just heard. "The words of the Koran have healing, spiritual and physical healing," he adds.

"I know," I reply, which may or may not be a lie. --BRITT ROBSON

7:56 a.m.
Rock 'n' roll wake-up, Keely Lane's house, Fridley

Keely Lane lifts his heavy head, says, "Hi!", then drops like dead weight back to his pillow. Who can blame him? He only returned from his jam session at the Hexagon Bar five short hours ago. When that's not robbing this drummer of his beauty sleep, gigging with Trailer Trash or touring with Ol' Yeller will do the job. Keely's 17-month-old son Darwin cries in the adjoining room. Darwin's mother Tara fetches him, and waking continues its cruel assault.

Downstairs, teeth get brushed and the stereo goes on. Buck Owens's voice fills the room with the brutally bouncy line, "They're gonna put me in the movies." Keely then voices his morning mantra: "I can always sleep later, when Darwin naps."

Soon the drummer perks up a little, remembering that Ol' Yeller's CD-release party was supposed to be written up in today's Star Tribune. He dashes out of the house and returns ten minutes later with the paper, which he spreads out on the floor. Darwin tromps over it as Keely says, "You know, the guy behind the counter always looks at me kind of funny in the morning. Today I thought about showing him this"--and he holds up his copy of the Strib.

"Look, man, I'm in the paper." --SARAH SAWYER

9:25 a.m.
Step aerobics class, Northwest Athletic Club, St. Louis Park

"Are you ready for the first strength set?" shouts the aerobics instructor--notably the only man in the studio this morning. Some 20 women--all ages, all sizes, all shapes--stare blankly at themselves in the floor-to-ceiling wall mirrors, struggling to keep their feet moving to the pace of the thundering techno music. A steady boom belches out of the speakers at the front of the studio. The high-pitched, electronic trills of a synthetic keyboard flit between the beats.

The instructor shouts words of encouragement into his headset microphone: "Woooo-hoooo! Lookin' good!" And then: "Okay, forget about the arms, let's go double-time!" With that he moves his feet twice as fast as before. The music is a remixed version of Madonna's "Vogue," played at a speed that makes the singer's voice sound a little like Alvin the Chipmunk's. Even for the fittest in the class, it's nearly impossible to keep time with the music. Feet are flailing to different beats all around the room. The teacher notices this and offers some advice. "Don't worry about the beat," he says. "I don't." --LEYLA KOKMEN