music thoughts

This is over six minutes long, but it's worth a listen:



It's an adaptation of Whitman's A Song of Joys, by Norman Dolla Joio. I believe it is excellent. [For the record, Della Joio's adaptation is, in my opinion, far superior to Whitman's original text. Just saying.]

The Maryland All-State Choir performed this song in... well, sometime between 2002-2005, which is when I was a member. Of course it was pre-YouTube, so we have no real evidence of that (you'll just have to trust me). I remember I REALLY wanted the solo at 3:42:

We sing prophetic joys,
We sing of lofty ideals
We sing of love,
Of love awaking in hearts of men--
Of men--
A universal love

But it was technically labeled for a soprano, and I was singing Alto 1 at the time, and I wasn't very confident. All-State is a unique experience: in the Maryland choir at least, there were maybe 120 voices? That means that in each part, there's only 20 people good enough to get in. From the whole state.

On the one hand, it's amazing. I remember when I first showed up at my first All-State, and the halls of the hotel we were at were just ringing with music. One person would start singing a song, and then EVERYONE within the vicinity was suddenly singing along, in parts. When I got there, the song was Prayer of the Children. As you walked down the hall, you would hear other people's songs, and it was okay to just pick it up and sing along and keep walking.

At one meal I recall, someone announced it was someone else's birthday. The result was the most amazing rendition of "Happy Birthday" I will probably ever hear in my life.

Clearly, it's an incredible experience. Everyone has at least a basic understanding of music theory. These are people who care about their vowels and their consonants and when and how they breathe. These are people who often have had technical training. Interacting with these people is exhilarating (that is, if you can operate on their level. And if you can't, I'm sure it's still exhilarating to observe).

At the same time, it's intimidating. One year, I was accepted to All-State--but my name was listed on a paper that had gotten stuck under someone's coffee cup (literally). So I was officially rejected at first, and then, weeks later, they called to apologize and say that my name had just gotten lost (I'm 99% sure it was because my maiden name placed me squarely at the end of every alphabetical list ever, and the last pages of any document are more likely to get lost).

That debacle was interesting. At first, I was totally shaken. When I thought I had been rejected, I had a major emotional crisis, because my music had been my defining feature for years (at least in my own mind). I got over it before I heard the truth, and hearing the truth--that I'd been accepted all along--was validating. But then going to All-State, and interacting with all these other extremely talented and skilled people, left me a little intimidated.

I don't know if I regret not auditioning for that solo. I don't think I would have gotten it if I had; even though I am technically a soprano, I was an Alto 1 at the time for good reasons (being that at the time I had very little opportunity to practice using my upper register, so I was a little rusty up there).

I'm not sure why this was on my mind so much this afternoon. Maybe it was because of Lemonade Mouth. James and I were watching it earlier, and that show always makes me miss my band, and music in general. My band was definitely NOT excellent, but we were dedicated and we had a lot of gigs while we were together. In the end we broke up because people were upset that we only performed the songs that I wrote.

The big problem was that no one else in the band was technically trained, so one girl only knew chords, one girl only knew tab, and then I knew all of that plus general music theory, so I had to translate every single song into every type of notation. It was hard, and especially hard when one of them would write a song and provide ZERO notation and expect me to just write everything out for everybody, not even knowing the key signature. Or knowing the key signature and having to transpose it mentally because they couldn't play the right key signature on their instruments.

Anyway, I'm rambling now. Maybe I was the whole time.

Anyone want to start a band?