I told you I'd explain that Spanish quote. I just didn't realize it was going to be this quickly. It's sort of the spirit of my high school choir career. In fact, it was painted on the wall of the choir room my senior year. The translation is basically "4 birds without direction are sitting in tall poplar tree." On it's own it doesn't make much sense, but it's the last line of a Federico Garcia Lorca poem that someone had set to music. The poem talks about making choices and aims for the future. Ok, actually it's about a river and the sea and a tree. But that's what I love about music. It really is poetry. You have to dig a level deeper to understand what it's really about.
Music is about the experience. Whether it's the performing or listening end. It's the lyrics, the melody, the tempo, interplay of the instruments, the voice, all rolled into one. In high school, that choir became a family. I don't know that we saw it coming. Sure we knew we had to work together to make the music, but our director really made us engage with the songs, and with each other. When we sang a requiem mass one year, he put us in groups of 4 or 5 to talk about death. But it wasn't just that, he knew us well enough by then to know who was friends with whom, and he organized groups accordingly. I didn't realize how much talking about death and our deepest darkest fears about it with kids I didn't know real well would impact me. For that same concert, our director read use his grandmother's journal day-by-day, leading up to the concert. It recounted the end of his grandfather's life. By the end of the journal, we were all crying and felt like we knew what this requiem mass was all about. He directed that concert with the journal under his score. It was a really moving concert for the audience, but I think that was once of those times where we got way more out of it.
Music has always been that way for me. It pulls at something essential in me. It's a part of who I am. I can't write music. I don't hear those unique melodies in my head like some. I'm incredibly jealous of those who do. I just like to absorb the life and spirit of it all. It'll always be a part of my life, it's just about figuring out how. That Spanish poems was called Agua, donde vas? (Water where are you going?) Each element asked has some sort of boundary except those 4 birds. They sit there without direction, but with nothing holding them back. That's what music has done for me. Given me the freedom to be me.
Music is about the experience. Whether it's the performing or listening end. It's the lyrics, the melody, the tempo, interplay of the instruments, the voice, all rolled into one. In high school, that choir became a family. I don't know that we saw it coming. Sure we knew we had to work together to make the music, but our director really made us engage with the songs, and with each other. When we sang a requiem mass one year, he put us in groups of 4 or 5 to talk about death. But it wasn't just that, he knew us well enough by then to know who was friends with whom, and he organized groups accordingly. I didn't realize how much talking about death and our deepest darkest fears about it with kids I didn't know real well would impact me. For that same concert, our director read use his grandmother's journal day-by-day, leading up to the concert. It recounted the end of his grandfather's life. By the end of the journal, we were all crying and felt like we knew what this requiem mass was all about. He directed that concert with the journal under his score. It was a really moving concert for the audience, but I think that was once of those times where we got way more out of it.
Music has always been that way for me. It pulls at something essential in me. It's a part of who I am. I can't write music. I don't hear those unique melodies in my head like some. I'm incredibly jealous of those who do. I just like to absorb the life and spirit of it all. It'll always be a part of my life, it's just about figuring out how. That Spanish poems was called Agua, donde vas? (Water where are you going?) Each element asked has some sort of boundary except those 4 birds. They sit there without direction, but with nothing holding them back. That's what music has done for me. Given me the freedom to be me.
Badger Boys State choir was, oddly enough, the best part about Boys State. Even though we had only spent a week without females, our rendition of "There is Nothin' Like a Dame" had a lot of feeling behind it.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, your post wins the very prestigious Kyle Rogers award for best post of BEDA Day Two.
I agree with so much of what you said Becky. Especially about it being a part of you, but not being able to create it like some people. AMEN!
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