Aimee Mann – Calling on Mary

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

At the closing of this morning’s church service, celebrating the fourth and final Sunday of Advent, Pastor Mark did something dangerous. He invited anyone in the congregation to come up on stage and to join the choir in a singing of Handel’s “Hallelujah” from Messiah. Unable to resist my better judgment against doing so, I walked up on stage along with probably 150 other semi-musical laypeople to instantaneously dust the cobwebs from my memory of what was the last time I sang this piece in public, nearly a decade ago (remember the Clinton administration?).

Thankfully, my memory served me well enough to realize that joining the “tenor” section would have been disastrous. Handel manages to squeal out notes up to a high “A” (roughly a major fourth higher than what I am comfortable with), and so with this in mind, I gladly joined the bass section, an act which instantly makes one feel somehow more “manly” anyway.

Well, the ad hoc choir made it through, and made it through quite well, and in the process reminded me that there is a substantial difference between hearing music and playing music, and even MORE of a difference between hearing sung music and singing music. And as much as I love distorted electric guitar power chords, and dazzling piano scales and progressions, there’s nothing quite like a community of people simply singing; sometimes a bit off key, sometimes missing those notes (and at times more obviously, the rests), sometimes jostling you a bit from the right to make some more stage room for themselves. There’s something uniquely human about this, something that is core to who we are, something that almost can’t be described (despite my pitiful attempts to do just that on this blog).

….now if only I could get my kids to sing some algebra songs….

One Response to “Hah! Lay Lieu Ya’”

1. Susanne Heimbuch says:

   December 21, 2009 at 8:55 am

   Kyle,

   Try http://matheatre.com/ for math songs. Former teacher, Marc Gutman records math songs in the hope of educating youngsters, and the rest of us.

   Sus

   Reply