Upcoming Sunday Worship Services
MUSIC SUNDAY APRIL 17 2005 J. Gagné
Homily: Singing is Praying Twice
I’m looking for language. I think I need to make something up. How do you find words to describe what it’s like to make music from the heart and soul? How do you describe the kind of healing and energy that can come from singing? How do I even explain to folks what it is I’m excited about? Light channeling down and pouring through me in song, out to the audience, and back, in community energy exchange…. the unity of sound from the choir when they sing with that rich tone, as one, like a living organism… Poetry’s good, sometimes... I’m in graduate school now, where academic writing is the standard, even when the topic is experiential, inspirational, non-verbal stuff. I’m straddling two worlds here, like much of our UU way of looking at things. I need language that describes both the spirit and the intellect, simultaneously, in a way that is inspiring. A tall order.
Language is a system to communicate ideas. In my graduate work I’m including some study of the physics that are involved in sound production. This area of science has its own language that works pretty well for its purpose. That’s not so challenging. Sound waves can be measured, pitches can be analyzed. That’s not so hard to describe. Then there’s body physics, and language that addresses healthy techniques, vocal anatomy. Experts have a terrible time agreeing here. Voice teachers use imagery to describe technique, since you can’t see it… it can get really weird sometimes, or obtuse. But none of these descriptions address experience. Experience will give you inspiration, when the voice is freed. All this language is insufficient to explain what I feel when I sing. It doesn’t explain how singing can have a profound healing influence, why singing is one of our basic means of non-verbal, verbal expression.
And then where do modalities like Reiki fit in? Well, Reiki doesn’t fit in with singing, not normally. I use it when I teach. Reiki is an energy-based healing, usually hands-on, and works in the realm of auras and chakras. The singer’s body becomes the instrument, so it makes perfect sense to use Reiki for singing. Yet it’s not by any means part of standard vocal practice, yet. If you think about your favorite performer whom you’ve seen live, you can see the shining aura of a singer who’s totally connected and inspired. When I teach I try to encourage the whole person to be engaged, to unclog chakras through singing. Toning does this. I’m sure chanting Buddhists experience this. But toning and chanting aren’t performance.
“Singing is praying twice.” I love this expression. This week at Berklee I heard the prominent blues expert Dr. Daphne Duval Harrison speak about the early days of the blues, where secular and sacred texts were mixed together. That was not a disrespectful process, but actually helped people to get drawn-in to the music. This made sense to me: I often experience music as a mixture of sacred and secular. In concert, no matter what I’m singing about, music is always spiritual for me. Here, in church, music is designed for worship but is nonetheless about regular living too. This duality involves being aware in the moment, while being taken on a journey out.
Singing is praying twice. What does this mean? I’ve been pouring through books to find the language. Some books I’ve found are written in a new-age style and focus on topics like energy and toning and healing. Others are technical and analytical, describing modalities and concepts, or providing specific exercises for the musician’s skill development. I haven’t found a book yet that combines both. I have however come across a wonderful book called “Essential Musical Intelligence” by Louise Montello. Dr. Montello describes how to reconnect to your own inspiration, your own song, to be the singer rather than the listener. She reminds us how our culture sets it up so that some of us are the designated singers, while others of us are to remain audience. Who makes that call? Yeah, That’s the hard part to figure out…. and involves big business and lots of hubris. Record companies, radio stations, confident opera stars, luck, the internet... Most people feel that they fit into the category of audience. What a restriction! Ours is a passive, listening-based culture, even in church. Yet singing is praying twice. Singing is a direct channel to the soul. In many cultures, everyone sings! There’s no audience, especially in some indigenous cultures. Remember our West African drumming, dance and singing workshops? The only time you’re considered off there is if you don’t participate.
In this sanctuary you guys sing great. We’re getting better all the time, too. The choir helps a lot; they just get up there and do it, even when they’re not so sure of themselves, and it almost always comes out fantastic. What a sound they have developed. But again, usually you folks are listening, and the choir is performing, even though it’s church and not a concert. How do we bridge that divide?
The new hymnal supplement that I helped work on is full of music that encourages everyone to sing. It was designed to offer music that inspires and enlivens worship, and I think we succeeded. Some of our older hymnody tradition, though familiar, is harder to sing with abandon because if you color outside of the lines, then you feel wrong. If you emote too much, well, it just isn’t done. You know. But even though the new hymnal has music that is freer by design, we are still learning to get over our inhibitions, and that’s centuries-old. And I must say, this congregation is better at it than many.
So back to language. When I start talking about energy, and reiki, and feel the light, and feel the energy flow between us, and stuff like that, I begin to grow uncomfortable. What I’m talking about does do all that, but those words sound …vacuous. Remember EST training? Half my family spoke language like that in the 70s and they all sounded really weird. But on the other hand if we limit ourselves to academic language, like describing singing as being about breath support and using clear diction, or the style of singing rhythm and blues is done in such-and-such a manner; or, the physics of sound waves teaches us how sound travels here in the sanctuary when the choir sings and bounces off the pews and ceiling and floor, and through you… —that’s interesting scientifically but it’s not inspiring creatively. This language makes accessing our “essential musical intelligence” difficult without tensing. Or, we might talk about the psychological interplay that occurs between performer and audience, observing the dynamic that is within the exchange of she who is in charge by being the performer, and those who are passive by listening, yet who have power by the fact of being there and choosing to listen, or not… well that kind of analysis misses the point all together.
It seems like every Music Sunday I want to find a way to talk about this. It’s like describing child birth, or climbing a mountain to the peak and seeing the view on a clear day. You can use words, but one has to have the experience to know what the words describe.
And these experiences are different for everyone. A hiking expert could tell you to get such-and-such hiking boots, go to such-and-such a national park to find the whatever trail, select a day with weather within a certain range, know where the good parking is and what areas allow pets, know which market in town has the good coffee… The expert could get on Oprah and describe what the experience up that mountain was really like, and everyone goes “ooooh.” But, what if you were afraid of failing the hike? What if you felt judged about how you step across each rock and tree limb? What if your whole life you were told only experts should do it, the rest of you aren’t good enough? So you go to hiking classes, you learn how to step properly, and then you go hiking in groups anyway because you really want to experience it, and you feel stupid at first but then you get to like it, and you even see the peak sometimes.
What if we had language that helped break that barrier in the first place? What if our culture talked about the inherent worth and dignity of all hikers to make it up the hill, no matter what their step style is? What about the inherent worth and dignity of your own inner musical intelligence?
Maybe that’s why singing is praying twice. Singing has language and non-language mixed together. It’s the words, it’s the song, it’s the spirit, it’s the emotion, it’s all of it together, creating a possibility for experiencing flow and connection and the divine. This experience is nearly impossible to describe. But I’m working on it.