I had a vision

Subject: I had a vision
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 13 May 05 - 10:48 AM

This is a small, true story.

Last Sunday was Mother's Day in the U.S., and our choir was small Sunday morning. A number of regular members had gone out of town to be with their mothers. So there were only four of us singers, all older women with gentle voices. Well, there was one really good soprano, but she knows how to blend.

For the offertory, we sang a song called Isaiah 49.

I will never forget you, my people.
I will hold you in the palm of my hand.
I will never forget you, I will not leave you orphaned,
I will never forget my own...

As I sang, I thought, "This is so pedestrian. The song seems to plod along." But I kept singing.

Then a picture came into my mind. I couldn't tell you where this image came from or where it "was" in my environment. It was merely the image of a small, country church, built of limestone. It was tucked among pine trees. I knew it was a protestant church of some sort, could be in the pine forests of the south or the north, either Alabama or Wisconsin, places where I have spent time.

So I said to myself, "Let me try singing this song as if I heard it coming out of the windows of that church." So I tried it, and it worked. I don't know what I did exactly, but others noticed me doing it, and they joined me. Our Fearless Leader heard the difference, and smiled her approval.

After church, I told this story to a very accomplished choir member. (She has a master's degree in horn performance.) She told me she heard the change, so now I know I am not just kidding myself.

What fun!

Subject: RE: I had a vision
From: wysiwyg
Date: 13 May 05 - 11:09 AM

Good job!

~S~

Subject: RE: I had a vision
From: open mike
Date: 13 May 05 - 11:30 AM

you are what you sing! (this is a good example of the power of
mind over matter....nice model to apply to any singing situation--
to use visualization to lift your voice and your spirit.)

I have a saying: "I will see it when i believe it."
an example of how your mind can shape your world!
( a "corruption" if you will, of "I'll believe it when i see it.")

when thinking of this saying i was wondering if it is your
"mind" or your "brain" ---what is the difference, if any??

glad you had this experience...and that it rippled out to others!!

Subject: RE: I had a vision
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 13 May 05 - 11:33 AM

I find that if I can't gert my emotions actively involved in what I am singing - the performance is "flat" - no matter whether it is TECHNICALLY correct or not.

But when the emotions are invovled - the technique can falter - and the performance will be better received.

Subject: RE: I had a vision
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 13 May 05 - 11:45 AM

Open Mike said:

when thinking of this saying i was wondering if it is your
"mind" or your "brain" ---what is the difference, if any??

Laurel, hoping that I understand your comment/question: As I use and understand it, "brain" is that soft, gray, wrinkled organ inside your skull. Purely the physical thing.

"Mind" is your consciousness, the processing, what you do with the brain.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: I had a vision
From: Hawker
Date: 13 May 05 - 12:36 PM

Perhaps its that the brain is the material thought processes of our earthly being and the mind is our spiritual being?
Perhaps......................
But then what does it matter the thought process / mind process worked, and it was good!
May you voice always soar like an angel
Regards, Lucy

Subject: RE: I had a vision
From: GUEST,David Ingerson
Date: 13 May 05 - 06:31 PM

Way to go, Leeneia, and thanks for sharing your inspiring experience. It illustrates not only mind over matter but also the power of images in our experiences and our culture.

Another note-worthy aspect is the shared feeling that sometimes happens between sensitive singers. There can be an amazing . . . synchronicity is not quite the right word and sympathy has too many other connotations to work well . . . but some special togetherness that can happen which takes the group of singers on a quantum leap from ordinary singing.

A powerful experience!

David

Subject: RE: I had a vision
From: Kaleea
Date: 14 May 05 - 12:53 AM

That was a great "vision" you had that did the trick.   I have often noticed that folks tend to sing hymns with not nearly as much gusto as if they were singing a shopping list. When I was just a young butterball in my teens, I recall the church choir director suggested that "we" of the choir try singing as if we actually believed the words we were singing. Some seemed a bit offended, but I had to snicker as I had been having similar thoughts. What a difference it makes to the listener.

Subject: RE: I had a vision
From: Jeremiah McCaw
Date: 14 May 05 - 02:36 AM

On a very slight tangent from the main point: saw one of those wee mobile signs in front of a church today. Most of these things have little sayings or adages on them that usually range from trite to maudlin to just plain lame. (Can you tell I'm one these cynical-about-religion types?)

This sign was different. All it said was:

"One who sings prays twice."

Somehow, the whole day felt better.

Subject: RE: I had a vision
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 14 May 05 - 03:46 AM

David,

Empathy is probably what you are describing, the ability to feel, and respond on an emotional level to, the emotions of others.

I believe that is what makes the truly great singing groups, and it's probably why so many of them are family groups.

Don T.

Subject: RE: I had a vision
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 14 May 05 - 09:40 AM

Thanks for the all your friendly responses.

Kaleea, re ion" "I have often noticed that folks tend to sing hymns with not nearly as much gusto as if they were singing a shopping list."

I think that lack of models may have a lot to do with this. Where on the airwaves would we hear a restrained and old-fashioned hymn sung right?

I didn't mention that this was a Catholic church. Since the 1970's, Catholic churches have been given a large amount of new songs, songs of many types. In my years with this choir, I have sung songs that sound like pop music, ethnic music, Taize music and chant. One of the first things we have to do with a new song is figure out what kind of song that composer had in mind - how to bring it alive.

David I: I agree with your remarks about synchronicity and sympathy. I was happy when I saw my fellow choir members assuming alert expressions and joining me in the new approach to the song.

In another context (the annual ice cream social) my husband told me about the military concept of "small unit pride." He said it is a very powerful thing. I think that with the singing of Isaiah 49 we had a case of Small Unit Pride going.

Subject: RE: I had a vision
From: GUEST,David Ingerson
Date: 17 May 05 - 07:13 PM

Thanks, Don, for your suggestion of the word empathy. Empathy might well be a precondition for what I'm trying to describe with one word but it doesn't include the heightened emotions of the experience. I'm trying to find a word for the experience of being in a small singing group and being so together, so connected, so beautiful it kicks everyone up a notch in both emotion and production or craft, similar to what Leeneia described.

So I went to Roget's and could not find a word that did the experience justice. Concord, consonance, rapport, empathy point in the right direction but don't include the elevated emotional component. Ecstasy, thrill, elation, and passion satisfy the emotional part but leave out the community or group part. Communion has too much religious baggage; soul has Motown baggage.

I dunno. Is there one word that can do it justice? Or is it one of those ineffible (sp?) experiences that takes a whole sentence to describe?

Sorry to be splitting hairs. I love singing and I love words. It seems to me that the words fall short here.

But the experience is wonderful, powerful, almost incandescant.

David

Subject: RE: I had a vision
From: open mike
Date: 17 May 05 - 07:56 PM

or are we just effing the ineffible?

Subject: RE: I had a vision
From: GUEST,David Ingerson
Date: 17 May 05 - 07:58 PM

Thanks, Don, for your suggestion of the word empathy. Empathy might well be a precondition for what I'm trying to describe with one word but it doesn't include the heightened emotions of the experience. I'm trying to find a word for the experience of being in a small singing group and being so together, so connected, so beautiful it kicks everyone up a notch in both emotion and production or craft, similar to what Leeneia described.

So I went to Roget's and could not find a word that did the experience justice. Concord, consonance, rapport, empathy point in the right direction but don't include the elevated emotional component. Ecstasy, thrill, elation, and passion satisfy the emotional part but leave out the community or group part. Communion has too much religious baggage; soul has Motown baggage.

I dunno. Is there one word that can do it justice? Or is it one of those ineffible (sp?) experiences that takes a whole sentence to describe?

Sorry to be splitting hairs. I love singing and I love words. It seems to me that the words fall short here.

But the experience is wonderful, powerful, almost incandescant.

David

Subject: RE: I had a vision
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 17 May 05 - 08:07 PM

Frankly, I doubt very much that there is a single word for the feeling/experience you describe.

So if I substitute the syllable "frump" for our missing word, we probably get, "I don't know much about frump, but I know it when I feel it."

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: I had a vision
From: Jeremiah McCaw
Date: 18 May 05 - 02:06 AM

The word you're looking for is "grok". The word was coined by Robert A Heinlein in his science-fiction classic "Stranger in a Strange Land". It implies an understanding of, and identification with something that is so deep and complete that it happens almost on a molecular (or soul-deep , if you prefer) level.

The term was fairly well-known to those of us who were about in the big bad 60's. I even remember Star Trek fans with buttons that said, "I Grok Spock"!

Subject: RE: I had a vision
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 18 May 05 - 08:54 AM

Our language doesn't provide many words for describing music. I have noticed this when trying to promote concerts. So I suppose the lack of a good word for describing the union of souls that are singing music is no surprise.

(Sorry, Jeremiah, I don't think "grok" is going to make the lexicon.)

I think this lack has to do with the fact that we process sound in the back of the brain, the more primitive part. It is older far than the front left part which is mostly responsible for language.

Subject: RE: I had a vision
From: PoppaGator
Date: 18 May 05 - 12:34 PM

I assume that leenia and her fellow choir members were singing the exact same notes at the exact same tempo before and after her vision somehow transformed first her singing and then everyone's.

Something was suddenly very different, and I'm sure any of us would have sensed it if we had been there, but (if my interpretation is correct) it was so subtle that no one could have described it, and there's no way it could be captured by any kind of musical notation or transcription (although I'm sure that a recording could capture it). We all know what's being discused here ~ feeling, conviction, charisma, whatever ~ but it sure is difficult to nail it down in a definition, or indeed to make it happen at will.

One thing that I found very intriguing: in her first description of the vision, leenia tells us that the little stone church in the pines was somehow recognizable as a Protestant church, but later we learn that her church and choir are Catholic. Is heartfelt hymnsinging more likely to be heard in a Protestant church than in a Catholic one? In the US, at least, that's probably a fair assessment, at least if the Protestant church under discussion is rural and "down-home."

The mandate of Vatican II to effectively recast the liturgy in forms truly accessible to the local people never really worked out, in my view, beyond the change from Latin to the local verancular (language) ~ certainly, the made-to-order pseudo-"folk" music, for the most part, has never really achieved a true resonance with the folks in the pews.

I've been privileged to witness one of the few exceptions to this general rule. St. Frances de Sales Church in uptown New Orleans is an African-American Roman Catholic parish that was given special authorization by the Vatican back in the '60s to develop their own Black Catholic liturgy, and they are still fulfilling that mandate today. The choir is superb ~ they've toured all over the world, singing for the Pope at St. Peter's among other things ~ but the congregation sings like angels, too.

Most of the songs/hymns sung at St. Frances, not surprisingly, come from the Negro Spiritual/Black Gospel traditions, that is, from the overwhelmingly Protestant African-American church. I think that this very rich repertoire simply holds more promise for seriously heartfelt interpretation than does any "guitar Mass" songbook of nouveau-folk devotional ditties composed by well-intentioned liturgical reformers in the late 20th century.

If liturgucal reform had occurred a generation or two earlier, American Catholic parishes might well have developed beautiful and deeply spiritually satisfying musical traditions drawing on Irish, Italian, Polish, and other sources, very similar to what the black folks at St. Frances were able to do with African-Americna traditions. However, the effort to synthesize a musical tradition for fully assimilated American Catholics ~ the children and grandchildren of the immigrant generations ~ has only resulted in some pretty dry and sterile music...

...Except, of course, for cases where a singer or two experiences a vision and is inspired to bring a new level of feeling to a given piece. Maybe this is the kind of thing necessary to create a new (or newly viable) tradition of church music.

Subject: RE: I had a vision
From: mg
Date: 18 May 05 - 03:30 PM

The Catholic newish music I have heard I will not even call music. Well I just did. It is hideous to my ears, and we basically weren't even allowed to sing the beautiful Catholic hymns. They are sneaking some back in now, even in Latin. It is almost too late. The songs they substituted...not really songs..just words that don't rhyme and have no set timing..look at a Catholic hymnbook, if you can call it that..the songs are totally not like any songs Americans or their ancestors would sing..3/4 goes to 5/8 goes to 3/2 all in a couple of verses..it is odd and jarring and discordant. Read ugly as sin..a book..about the sheer ugliness of both the architecture and the music that was foisted on us...no offense to anyone who likes this..to each his/her own...but they should have at least left us our beautiful music and added whatever else they wanted to on top of it..having different services with different foci etc. mg

Subject: RE: I had a vision
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 18 May 05 - 10:04 PM

I'll post this, and it probably will make no sense to anyone. But, Poppa Gator drew my attention to this thread, and I thought it worthwhile to share my experience. As it involves my faith, it may or not be meaningful.

I sing in a black male gospel chorus... have been now for 9 years. When I first was asked to sing a lead, I was somewhat self-conscious about the whole thing, because I am the only white member of the church. I concentrated mostly on leading the chorus (that's what a lead is supposed to do,) and tried to be as solid and on beat as I could so that the other singers could respond to me with confidence.
As the years went by, I became more self-assured and at the same time, less self-conscious. That allowed me to relax, feel the words, improvise, play with the rhythm and phrasing and immerse myself totally in the experience.

About three years ago, I started praying before I sang leads, asking the Lord to take over and use me. It caused a very pronounced change in the way that I sing, and the response from everyone was dramatically different. I actually reached the point where it felt more like an out-of-body experience... as if I could stand aside and watch the Spirit using my voice and my body to sing. Afterward, it was almost as if I had been in a trance. It's an experience that defies description.. giving yourself completely to the song. While it is an intensely spiritual experience for me, I believe that a very similar experience is available to anyone who gives themselves completely to the song, letting the words and the message of the song take over. It is one a them pair a ducks... by complete submission of your will, you experience complete freedom. Soaring freedom.

Jerry

Subject: RE: I had a vision
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 18 May 05 - 11:52 PM

That's very inspiring, Jerry. I think I will follow your example and try some prayer too.

As for those who think Catholic churches don't have any good music -
you should be in my church when

we sing "Lord, You have come to the seashore," and the whole,   massive edifice seems to float up to heaven

the family that has had a death wants "On Eagle's Wings" AGAIN

everyone stays for all five verses of Kelvingrove, even though it's the closing song

we do "Lead me Lord," acapella and mucho improvisato, and the people around us laugh and clap
---------
I could probably think of more such moments, but it's 10:49 pm here, and I'm too tired.

As for the congregation not singing along, fewer and fewer people are singing all the time, not just in church. YOu can see a recent thread all about it, if you want.