I’ve written here
before about assorted cultural conscious raising experiences, but last weekend’s
was unique—three “cultural” activities, each with a different purpose and a
different tone. All three were time well spent, each in its own way, but the
bigger story (for me) is the amazing bit of self-realization I encountered
along the way.
The day started with
a meeting of the local chapter of Old Lesbians Organizing for Change (OLOC), a national group
whose local chapters vary greatly in how they live out their name, “organizing
for change.” The post-potluck program (the potluck is, of course, required for
all lesbian events) was a video about an old lesbian couple—a growing new genre
of films, documentary and fiction. It’s an interesting marker of the progress
we’ve made toward visibility and the hesitant acceptance of both LGBTQ people
and LGBTQ aging. More about that another time. (Soon, since I have a radio show
on the topic coming up in January.)
From OLOC, we went
to Sound Circle’s
solstice concert. Many of you know about Sound Circle and their marvelous music,
and anyone who reads this blog knows how much I love them. I’ll have more to
say about them in a minute.
And from there, we
rushed off to a roller derby match. Yup, you read right: roller derby. I’d
never seen a roller derby match before, never even considered it as something I
particularly wanted to do. But a colleague of my partner does roller derby in
her spare time, so there we were, squeezing into the crowd in a chilly
warehouse. Scores of folks come to watch women in colorful (and sometimes
weird) costumes swirling around the oval track, doing their best to bump and
block and generally disrupt one another en route. I don’t especially need to go
back, but as a cross-cultural experience, it was really interesting—and it does
indeed seem to have a whole culture wrapped around it. There’s currently a picture/sign
in the Walnut Café that asks, “When was the last time you did
something for the first time?” Good question. This was my answer. Here’s a
picture to prove I was there. I’m not in
the picture, to be sure, but I did take
it.
So, in the middle of
that cultural sandwich was Sound Circle. Their solstice concert is always an
excellent way to welcome the return of the light, and this one, with a theme sketched
of sleeping and waking, dark and light, rising and falling, seemed perfect for
the season. I especially loved a few songs: “Something Inside So Strong,” an
anti-apartheid song, and “Woke Up This Morning (with My Mind Set on Freedom),” a
song from the Civil Rights movement, reminded me of last weekend’s
experiences and of OLOC’s mission, “organizing for change.” Their inclusion in
this concert also seemed brilliant, a twist that translated the theme of rising
and waking, shifting it from the seasons to the realm of human striving. And then there was
this marvelous piece called “Snowforms”
by Murray Schafer.
Shafer introduced the term “soundscape” and popularized the field of “acoustic
ecology,” which sees sound as part of the environment. So naturally, his music
depicts the environment through sound. "Snowforms" uses Inuit terms
for various kinds of snow to punctuate this wonderful drifting, flowing,
sometimes crunchy musical soundscape. The music is so non-standard that the “score”
doesn’t have staffs and notes. Instead, it takes the form of swooping waves,
white on blue, intended to depict sounds, not neatly structured music. It takes
a group like Sound Circle to pull this off, I imagine. It was delightful. And a
nice nod to winter.
As always, I loved this
concert. But it was different for me from earlier ones with Sound Circle. And
that’s the real point of this blog.
First, I should
mention that I never used to consider myself much of a fan of choral music. I
appreciate the fact that many voices can create sounds that a single voice (or
a few voices) cannot. And I know, in principle, that a chorus represents
something important in itself: a synergy among people that says something
meaningful about human existence, speaks to our desire for community. Still, until
recently, all of that was just theory to me. But over the past few years, as
I’ve started hanging out around folks, my partner among them, who sing in
choruses—Sound Circle and Resonance Women’s Chorus, in particular—my feeling about all this has shifted.
It was gradual, I suppose. Hearing more choral music in general, hearing choral
music that’s this good, hearing people who sing in (and direct) choruses
talking about the experience. It all had an impact, I’m sure, although I wasn’t
especially thinking about it.
Until Saturday. And
then I got it. I realized that I was experiencing this concert in a whole new
way, and it surprised me. I took more pleasure in noticing the different
voices, whereas before, I just heard the overall sound. I found new delight in
the variations in mood created by different songs—I heard it more in the music
and I felt it more in the audience. I was more delighted than usual by the
energetic songs, and I got more absorbed in the reflective songs than I usually
have (although “Praises for the World”
has always moved me to the core and remains in a class of its own). And I was
more aware of the musical skill of the singers, individually and collectively. Simply
said, the music touched me more. I was genuinely sorry to have it end. Despite
the fact that I had a roller derby match to attend.
Now, it’s possible
that I was just more “present,” more mindful, more attentive than I’ve been
before. But I think it’s something more. “So
what was it?” you’re probably asking. I wondered this myself, even during the
concert.
Why, I asked
myself, is this so much more engaging for me today? My answer: I think it’s
because I’ve grown such a different relationship with music lately. I’m hanging
around with music a lot these days, spending time with it, sometimes alone and
sometimes in company. I’m playing with it, listening to it, watching how it relates
to other people and they to it, asking it questions, wondering what it wants.
We’re becoming friends. And this process of getting acquainted has changed how
I understand music and, quite apparently last Saturday, how I relate to it.
I didn’t come to
this new friendship easily. Never having been a singer, my relationship with
music was always as an outsider, an observer, not a participant—not the best
way to form a friendship, I realize. So, from this less-than-intimate
perspective, I think I always thought that music was something that other
people did, not me. And that people who could sing just did. They’d stand up, open their mouths, and lovely music would pour
out. Well phrased, perfectly on key, precisely modulated. It’s nice, I thought
to myself, but it’s no big deal. It’s just what they do, because they can. And
then Sue Coffee, the director of Sound Circle and Resonance, asked whether I’d
like to be involved in some way with Resonance. That led to my unexpected
journey into a new friendship with music.
I’ve written here before
about my recently assumed role as “Assistant Maven” for Resonance, one result
of Sue’s inquiry. In this role, I get to share space with the chorus as they
practice every week. I halfway expected it to be boring. But it turns out to
be fascinating. It first challenged and now seems to have changed how I understand
singing and choruses. Listening to these women prepare for a concert, sound by
sound, line by line, song by song, I’ve rather quickly come to a whole new
appreciation for how much work it takes to make music sound good. From them, I’ve
learned that the synergistic power of choral music, wonderful as a whole, also
reflects all the countless pieces it encompasses. Individual notes, individual
voices, individual parts magically stirred together—all in the context of relationships,
carefully tended.
Another part of
this path has been my unexpected and tentative personal foray into singing. Never
(ever!) having thought myself a singer, the invitation to become involved in Resonance
made me wonder, vaguely, whether I might be able sing in the chorus. Before
daring such an outrageous step, I decided to take a voice lesson or two. Now, I still don’t think of myself as a singer, except in the broadest sense as someone who sometimes sings out loud, and I'm not singing in the chorus. But I have
discovered that learning to sing is actually fun. It’s made me more comfortable
with my voice (“more” not equating to “very”) and more comfortable with singing
out loud in a group—like, during the sing-along part of a Holly Near concert.
What’s more, I actually enjoy these activities. A lot.
And taking voice lessons (those words seem so improbable to me!) has also given me the opportunity to hang out on a regular basis with
someone who is a singer (in Sound Circle), as well as a musician in ways I can’t
even imagine (how do you even begin to “do an arrangement” of a whole song?). One
of the most important lessons for me has been her talking, casually, about
her own singing. “When I’m working on a song …,” she says. And I’m thinking “You?
Working on a song?” Hmmm. Maybe good
singers don’t just stand up and open their mouths to let the music escape. Or she says, “When I’m
performing, I have to remind myself to …” So then I wonder, “You mean to
tell me that you’re actually thinking
about what you’re doing? You’re working
on doing it right? It doesn’t just flow from you like water from a faucet?” It
almost seems like making good music is like any relationship: it takes work. Really?
This is a bonus I
never expected from these activities—in fact, I never would have known I’d be
interested in a “friendship with music.” But sought out or not, this
combination of experiences appears to have changed music for me.
Heck, I even hear
the 5 a.m. clock radio differently. Truly.
