Dear friends,
Thank you so much for joining on this wonderful journey with Alice Parker. Her very soft-spoken yet passionate, peaceful yet intense presence has galvanized our focus. She helps us focus on simple things that can sometimes confound us! Here are a few bits of her wisdom that I have gleaned from these past few days. I would invite you to share your experiences and impressions as well! : )
1. Good, steady rhythm can be expressive and meaningful. Rubato and rhythmic freedom are often overused devices and gimmicks. Maintaining a healthy relationship with a steady beat-- living in the rhythm-- is not so much a mental exercise as it is a physical phenomenon. For example, if we look at Alice Parker giving us preparatory beats for I WANT JESUS TO WALK WITH ME and try to count in our heads "1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and," there is very little chance we will enter the song, aligning with her spirit. If we watch her preparatory beats and the way she physically embodies the spirit of the music, we can enter physically and fully into that realm with her-- we can share in our imagination of being a lonely soul, or a slave in the chain gang, or a frightened soul on the banks of death, or a child wandering into a church-- accepting whatever rhythm that spirit sets forth. If we allow our bodies to experience what hers is experiencing from the moment she begins conducting to the end of the piece, our whole selves will be involved in the rhythm-- not just our (sometimes feeble and frail) minds. Statues are for museums. We are living, breathing instruments, alive with breath that God gives us to live and move and have our being. HALLELUJAH! As we often talk about, when the conductor shows us half notes, we must be embodying physically in some part of ourselves the quarter notes that live inside those half notes. If the conductor is conducting quarters, we must experience and feel the eighth notes inside of her quarters. So, then, when we get a slow tempo like HARK I HEAR, we must hold ourselves in the quarter notes, not race to the next half note. Fully engage in the smallest notes-- give them their time and space and lifespan in the world. Let your bodies feel the pulse inside every beat. Many conductors will say, "Watch me." Alice Parker would say, "Dance with me. Walk with me. Mourn with me. Breathe with me." Rhythm is not for our eyes and brain. It is for our whole self-- it is a means of uniting our spirits. Did you ever wonder why your heart beats? We need rhythm. We are not alive without it inside of us. When music is alive, it has a heartbeat, too. Stay in the groove, stay in the sound, stay in the world you have been welcomed to create. Good, steady rhythm can be expressive and meaningful. Always allow the inner jazz band jamming inside of you to have a cool time-- and you can just sing and dance along!
2. Melody is a means by which words can gain greater meaning, regardless of its surroundings. Do not take for granted the ebb and flow, rise and fall, stress and release of a melody or a word that rides upon it. Do not ever sing a single note without realizing if it is part of a melody or if it is somehow part of the backdrop for a melody being sung someplace else. We are at a place in our growing process as a choir that we focus more on vocal continuity and consistency, sounding harmonies clearly, communicating words clearly and expressively. This is not to say that we neglect phrasing or musicality at this point-- we do that, too-- for example, think of the many times we find the peak of a phrase, build to it, then intensify as we approach its softest, sweetest, warmest, most beautiful note. Alice Parker is challenging us not just to find the musical phrases, but to look even at a single word, and to figure out how much more compelling and communicate it could be if we figured out where its 'press' is and where its 'lift' is. Words like: GLAWree, STRANGer, JORdan, OVer, GOin, GAther, and MAny, MAny, MAny more! Tomorrow night, we have no gimmicks-- no Plymouth Brass fanfares, no over-the-top soprano descants, no crash cymbals, no roaring Lied Organ. no dancing bears. We just have beautiful melodies, and human beings sounding and embodying, singing and dancing them. This is the way God made us. We are the instruments God creates without anyone's help! Be Joshua Bell's Stradivarius-- allow the music to come from within, and be an instrument for the music to sound!
3. Diction is a means of communication. It is not an end product for which we strive. It is a way to help us connect with the message that the music and its text have for us and for the listener. I often talk about 'diction beyond understanding.' What I mean by that is: we do not sing a "J" on the word "Joy" just so that people can cognitively process that we said a particular word. We sing a "J" with gusto on the word 'Joy" to help embody the meaning and spirit of the word. The "J" is a means of communicating the concept of joy. There are other ways one can communicate Joy as well-- it is not that important that we say the word clearly as people can hear and experience joy. As you've noted in our work in together in choir, we change the way we do diction based on certain dialects, based on certain kinds of styles--- the way we say words (aka. diction) helps us to communicate the meaning and the spirit of the songs we share. So, when Alice Parker says not to do a schwa after the 'M' on Theme, it is not because we pedagogically disagree or academically argue about some kinds of profound or important choral rules. It is because we have a different way in our imagination of how best to communicate the spirit of that moment. We have a different idea of how to put an exclamation mark to cap off the bubbling joy that overflows in the piece! What is most important is that our body, minds, spirits, and voices remain connected with the text and the music-- NOT that we subscribe to a certain way of pronouncing things. Having said that, equally important is that whatever interpretation of diction we choose to employ, it must be shared unanimously by everyone involved. This leads us to the final discovery...
4. The only reason we rehearse is so that we can connect with one another and sing together. Period. End of sermon...(well, end of point 4 anyways...)
Tomorrow, we have a chance to allow our personal experiences with rhythm, melody, and diction to bind us together as one. That we can sing is true gift! That we can dance is a joy. That we can sing and dance TOGETHER, sharing in music and messages that have been left for us from across the ages of time and beyond the boundaries of space-- well, friends, that is a miracle and a blessing from our God.
Grace and peace, and many thanks for all you are and all you do.
TT
