I hear voices. They’re not in my head: the singing is on the Facebook feed of my synagogue’s Friday-night service.
I hear voices. They’re not working hard, as near as I can tell: they seem to effortlessly cross time and space from Eastern-Time Ottawa to Mountain-Time Tempe via some magic we’ve named “streaming”, just as if that explained it.
I hear voices. They’re not all the same: indeed, they’re not even all trying to be the same. What’s with that? Some voices are wafting above the others, singing different notes from the melody. Not wrong or off-putting notes, not can’t-sing-that-high/low notes, not don’t-actually-know-this-tune notes. Notes that somehow work with the melody; notes that somehow enhance it.
Without being able to do it beyond an exceedingly basic level, I learned to call this activity “harmony”. However, when I look up “harmony” online for a quotable quote, I am immediately swamped by tsunamis of text (here and here, for example) and video (here and here and here, for example) that assume an understanding of concepts and distinctions that I do not have or much want to acquire. I am, in fact, more than happy just to enjoy being in the presence of good harmonizers, however anyone defines it.
When I was first learning the different and usually a capella melodies used by different cantors for the same prayer, dagnab it, the occasional in-the-moment variations by people around me threw me off. What? We’re supposed to sing a different note here? Why didn’t someone say? But now that I know the major through-lines, as it were, I can appreciate the harmonies for what they are while holding to my part.
Why are we talking about vocal harmony/harmonizing? Because it reminds me of the beauty that can come with variation. Not wild, thoughtless, or ignorant variation, but variation introduced by someone who could absolutely sign the melody note-for-perfect-in-key-note and yet who chooses something a little different. Because vocal harmony gives me hope for our community: that when we each know our own part well enough to sing it confidently, maybe we can appreciate the different notes that someone else brings to our song.
Isabel, I find that listening to music, a performance, or even a speech, my appreciation for the performance can also depend on my being receptive of it. Whether it be the performance, the words, the melody, something will capture. I just read that The Beatles song Yesterday has been recorded over 2000 times. I won’t appreciate every performance but I will the message.
Kenora Ken – An excellent point. It’s not all one-way: we bring something to a performance as well.
This is exactly why I joined a choir. For the first number of years, I struggled, but over time my brain accomodated itself to singing (a new skill then) and to singing in harmony.
Judith – Lovely. And, on the practical side, likely also good for your brain.
Isabel – maybe the message is just that, the message, and not the medium as Marshall McLuhan maintained in 1964.
John – 🙂 Maybe.
I was in a synagogue once. I think I remember the kind of singing you are describing. My Jewish boyfriend took it for granted but to me it was one of the oddest things I’d ever heard. However, when I became part of the charismatic renewal I soon discovered groups small, medium, or very large of people improvising song as they prayed aloud in tongues. I discovered that my own voice could make its own music as well as its more language-like verbalization. When a large congregation is singing that way, it’s like a flock of birds flying together without bumping into one another. A sense of volume and timing and musical harmony — but not conventionally organized like choral music — moves the individuals to produce waves of beautiful sound. I am sure the ancient Jews did this sort of thing because priests routinely used glossolalia and when King Saul joined them they felt something unexpected had happened, possibly because he had an unpredictable personality.
Laurna – Your comment makes me realize that I don’t remember random congregants harmonizing in the United Churches of my youth. It’s interesting that some Christian denominations do sing that way, but certainly not all. And (as I understand it) there are some Jewish communities that frown on the use of musical instruments – so I suppose they would rely entirely on the human voice.
There’s nothing more uplifting than singing harmony in a group.
Tom
🙂
Your own two selections for Music of the Week are excellent examples of harmony (of course, that’s why you chose them). I personally can sing harmony — give me the notes, and some rehearsal, and I will sing harmony and love it. But I can’t her it. Or, more accurately, I couldn’t — I heard the combination of notes as a single complex note. It’s only in my later years that I have been able to hear two different notes in a harmonic pattern and (very rarely) three notes. I can hear the difference between an F-major chord and an F-minor, but not what notes make up that chord. Video helps, as in your Music selections, because I can see the lips move, watch the way the soloists holds his head…
Jim T – This reminds me of the psychology of colour: apparently what makes the most sense is not to talk about colour in an objective and fixed sense, but rather as a multiplicity of human experiences. Maybe harmony is like that.