The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #144099 Message #3330193
Posted By: Desert Dancer
28-Mar-12 - 01:43 PM
Thread Name: Disappearance of communal singing in US
Subject: Disappearance of communal singing in US
How Communal Singing Disappeared From American Life, And why we should bring it back, by Karen Loew in The Atlantic.
Excerpts:
With the crack of baseball bats across the land, the singing season for Americans is about to begin. At ballparks from Saint Louis to San Diego, people will stand during the seventh-inning stretch and belt "Take Me Out to the Ballgame." They will feel the pleasure of singing a bouncy, easy song with thousands of other fans. They will be cheered by the sunny lyrics, even if their team is down. They will lose themselves in a bond stretching around the stadium, a few minutes of carefree unity.
And when the season's over, that'll be it until next spring.
Adults in America don't sing communally. Children routinely sing together in their schools and activities, and even infants have sing-alongs galore to attend. But past the age of majority, at grown-up commemorations, celebrations, and gatherings, this most essential human yawp of feeling—of marking, with a grace note, that we are together in this place at this time—usually goes missing.
The reasons why are legion. We are insecure about our voices. We don't know the words. We resent being forced into an activity together. We feel uncool. And since we're out of practice as a society, the person who dares to begin a song risks having no one join her.
This is a loss. It's as if we've willingly cut off one of our senses: the pleasure center for full lungs and body resonance and shared emotion and connection to our fellow man.
...
One new communal occurrence in contemporary life cries out for song: the post-shooting vigil. The event is inherently public and emotional, made for group singing. ... In news reports, we see photos of hugs and tears and shocked faces, and then candlelight vigils. These events, which apparently will continue, seem even sadder without the relief of song.
When, if not here, are blues and spirituals called for? Where, if not here, would they provide a measure of healing? Healing for all, not just the performer with a guitar at the front of the crowd. Perhaps the vigils will inspire a powerful new folk song—one that's easy to sing, memorable, "viral"—to be written.
...
Occupy Wall Street is another new phenomenon built for communal song. Music has been a major element of the demonstrations, now blossoming again along with springtime, but "not widespread songs we've been singing together," said Nelini Stamp, a Brooklyn resident and singer who's been involved since the beginning in September. Although they're more fragmentary, the protest moments involving song still have Stamp excited: from ongoing sing-ins at courthouses to resist home foreclosures, to the night when Occupy was evicted from Zuccotti Park in November, when dozens of arrested activists sang "Stand By Me" and "With a Little Help From My Friends" in the halls of central booking.
...
To be sure, musicmaking is alive and well in America. The YouTube platform for performance sharing is just one sign. Online lessons have empowered wannabes to learn. Folks sing in religious settings as much as ever. People who enjoy singing get together in homes to make music with friends, and choral groups abound. It's the community-oriented, community-building, sometimes spontaneous kind of singing that's suffering.
Following on that last paragraph, what I see is there's so much focus on individual performance and on "performance", rather than self-entertainment. YouTube exemplifies that. And the TV examples of group singing (Glee and that acapella singing contest show) are about highly-arranged performances with star soloists. People don't think they can measure up. And without practice, they have more trouble feeling comfortable letting anything out.
The article mentions the "Get America Singing...Again! campaign [from the National Association for Music Education] in the 1990s, which put forward 88 songs as a shared repertoire for Americans". But, the common repertoire is still thin and disappearing.
Anyway, this is a complaint we've certainly covered here before, but I thought it was interesting to see it come up, and be well-outlined, in a mainstream press outlet.
~ Becky in Tucson