Singing at Riverside Church: A Pinnacle Event

It was a life changing experience for the sixteen- and seventeen-year-old students who sang at The Riverside Church for the annual festival of Spirituals for Dr. King. Fifty-six young women from Appleton, Wisconsin, traveled to New York, and performed African Celebration, a set of folk songs in three native South African languages, arranged by Canadian composer, Stephen Hatfield. Most of the students had not been to New York City before, and were thrilled to meet the legendary Alice Parker, and were deeply touched by the singing of Pamela Warrick-Smith. Though to these girls the Civil Rights Movement is a history lesson, not a memory, they were humbled and honored to be in a place where Dr. Martin Luther King had spoken.

The Appleton North High School Varsity Women's Choir with Pamela Warrick-Smith and Alice Parker at Riverside Church.

After the trip, I asked them to put some memories on paper, so that they would never forget the feelings they had. The thoughts flowed out of them, and hundreds of pages were submitted to me. Here are just a few of their words:

"I didn't know we had churches that big or that pretty in the United States. Singing We Shall Overcome, We Will March Through the Valley...need I say more? It was just one amazing night, an experience second to none!"

"I cried when we stood with the audience and sang We Shall Overcome. The man next to me squeezed my hand and raised it in the air as we swayed back and forth. That was such a moving experience that I know I will never ever forget."

"It was incredible singing inside the audience. It was so powerful. On many of the songs I did not even know the words, but I still sang. It did not matter, just singing with so many different people was so relaxing. I never had to think about what the lady next to me thought if I screwed up."

"I loved Pamela Warrick-Smith. I just hope our presence and music touched her as much as she touched me."

"It was wonderful and I had tingles and shivers running up and down my body. I even saw people crying in the audience. It was so emotional, because I really have never

been part of a choir before. It made me realize the power of singing and the emotions that come with it."

"I sang my heart out and could feel everyone else around me doing just the same."

"I was absolutely awestruck by all of the other talented choirs and individuals present at the tribute to Dr. King."

"Riverside Church was just beautiful. I almost cried when people kept clapping for us. A man from the Inspirational Choir gave us a big thumbs up!"

"I didn't want to stop singing for them. It was one of the best experiences in my life."

James Heiks, Conductor, Varsity Women's Choir North High School, Appleton, WI

Fellows Reunion

January 12-14, 2000

Seven Fellows journeyed through the cold to a warm welcome at St. Hilda's House in New York City, for their first 'reunion', January 12-14, 2000. Enjoying a lively two-and-a-half days of discussion and singing were: Ken Kosche ('90, WI), David Bridges ('91, TN), Bill Roberts ('91, AZ), Kay Dunlap ('93, MA), Jim Bailiff ('95, NC), Burton Bumgarner ('95, TN), and Stephen Johnson ('99, CT).

We began to get acquainted with each other in an informal meeting Wednesday evening, then on Thursday morning we attended the rehearsal of the Musicians of MELODIOUS ACCORD at Riverside Church. We were impressed anew with the talents of these singers, and the easy and productive camaraderie of the rehearsal. Lunch followed at a big round table at the West End Café on Broadway: memories of past workshops abounded, along with some particularly hoary jokes.

In the afternoon, we read through some octavos that Kay Dunlap had brought from ECS, as well as some of Alice's more recent works, preparing for an informal SING with the Sisters that evening. They fed us a delicious meal - enough so that the singing was a bit difficult, but they joined us in a program that included anthems very old and very new. On Friday there was still more singing, talking and eating. We discussed Melody, and the book that Alice is just beginning to write. Wonderfully helpful comments helped her to realize to whom the book is addressed ("If I think Fellows, I'll do it right!"), and the mixture of story and theory that comprises the 'meat'.

A final session back at the Convent let us think about another meeting next year at this time, to share repertoire, discuss theory and teaching, publication and the Web, etc. We'll hope that other Fellows that were unable to join us this year will come for the lively idea-trading.

The View from Here

In re-reading past columns, I'm reminded of the old New England saying 'If you don't like the weather, wait 15 minutes." Right now the view is white - dazzling, blinding, beautiful soft white loose flakes that blow from time to time in the wind. Yet I can be sure that when this Newsletter appears, all will be changed.

It's been so cold that there's little melting - easy shoveling, and not much icy driving. Even the road outside looks mostly white, with the clean dirt from the Town spreader in the middle. But down in the town, you can definitely see the pavement, and the curbs get progressively darker as the population increases. I do remember New York City looking pristine in an evening snow, turning black by the next morning.

Lots of family at this time of year - after the Christmas celebrations in different houses, the group gathered here for a millennial New Year's Eve celebration that included a watch-night fire outside in the starry darkness, most of us huddled under blankets in a circle around it, while the men kept feeding it logs and brush. We had to be very careful since the ground was dry at that point - the snow didn't come until mid-January. There was some skiing at the small lift near us, but we spent most of the time doing puzzles, playing games, making music, and, of first importance in this family, cooking and eating!

When the snow finally came, in 18 inch abundance, the family arrived again in smaller groups, this time for toboganning, sledding, snow men and angels-on-the-lawn. The succession of bright, cold days prolonged the fun right up to March1, rain and thaw, and the beginning of the sugaring season.

Listening Differently

Editorial

I keep learning what I'm doing not by knowing it in advance, but by unsolicited comments from students and friends. Here's some of a wonderful letter from my friend Lucille Reilly, 'the dulcimer lady', reflecting on what she learned in my arranging class years ago.

"As I sing in a choir here in Denver, rehearsing Bach's B minor Mass, I've thought of you and what you do to help musicians compose and loosen up in general.

"It's been over 25 years since I last sang the Mass, yet I find the time spent in between, jamming and improvising on the dulcimer, has its place: it's difficult to sing my part without hearing all the other parts at the same time. Jamming on tunes I'd never heard before taught me to hear when a chord "grinds" toward another chord, and which chord that will be. It's no different with Bach!

"Then there's the dance part. Playing contra dances for 18 years has a bearing on my classical interpretation (as does dancing.) One of the things we band members strive for is creating tension in a tune, and then letting go of it. Then there are the short vs. long notes. Both folk and classical music need them, especially the often-forgotten short notes. Anyway, I think of your "jamming" students I've crossed paths with, and realize now that they are doing far more than creating impromptu voice parts by ear. They are creating music by feel - and it's wonderful!

"We musicians can get too stuck on written notes. It's great to be able to listen to the complete picture, [add a line that fits in], and enjoy the [total] experience. Keep spreading that joy around!"

I've known for years that I'm teaching more than improvisation: Lucille points out the essential truth that I'm trying to teach the whole: it must be comprehended before we can use the parts in a meaningful way. I'm talking about the whole that we enter into when we learn to swim (the water-world) or ride a bike (the motion-within-gravity world). Music is the sound-world that feels to me as tactile and visible as water. We must step off the edge and give ourselves up to it before we can begin to be at home in it. And once we are at home, we discover that there is almost nothing we can do that is wrong: we keep it moving, listening constantly to its minute changes of direction and intensity, and responding in kind.

Another of my favorite image is any ball game. When a beach ball is coming toward you, you can't respond with a memorized motion practiced ahead of time. You must respond to that moment alone - to the velocity and speed and direction of the ball - with the proper amount of energy to change its course and return it.

And, as Lucille so delightedly announces, this is true for all kinds of music: Bach and contradances, Gershwin and Palestrina, Sousa and salsa. So my cruel practice of getting students out in the middle of the class circle, throwing them a melodic line and demanding an immediate response is just plain basic training - you can't possibly learn how to do it except by doing it. What seems so difficult at first becomes second nature - it's almost an attitude rather than a skill - and the ability to respond to the whole sound world around you translates into an infinity of possibilities.

[Hinshaw Music is releasing a new video this month, showing me at work trying to teach this skill to amateur singers of different ages and backgrounds. Look for Folksong Transformations in the MELODIOUS ACCORD Bookstore: you can order it now.]

We do tend to get lost in the page, the rulebook, the theory, the premeditated response. And it is total joy to discover that as you leave that certitude you are entering into a world which is larger and more varied and more rewarding than you could ever have imagined. "Keep spreading the joy" indeed: it's what we're all about.

Webmaster Roy Reports

Like an operation to separate Siamese twins, the Melodious Accord web site has been given a home of its own, out from under the protective wing of aliceparker.com. It is with great pride and pleasure that we announce the new domain address of melodiousaccord.org for news and information about your favorite charitable organization. But just like the aforementioned surgery, there is still a lot of therapy to go through before the patients can be fully functioning individuals.

Look for new energy, information and resources in the next few months. We will be implementing some new features including a "links" page that will be your source for musical resources on the web and a "bulletin board" for discussion of issues musical, political, cultural or whatever is on the collective mind of our constituents.

With Thanks to Salman Rushdie

In the November edition of Cadenza, the newsletter of the San Francisco Symphony Chorus (thanks to them, too, and their conductor Vance George), we found the following wonderful quote from Rushdie's novel The Ground Beneath Her Feet:

"Why do we care about singers? Wherein lies the power of songs? Maybe it derives from the sheer strangeness of there being singing in the world. The note, the scale, the chords; melodies, harmonies, arrangements, symphonies, ragas, Chinese operas, jazz, the blues; that such things should exist, that we should have discovered the magical intervals and distances that yield the poor cluster of notes, all within the span of a human hand, from which we can build our cathedrals of sound, is as alchemical a mystery as mathematics, or wine, or love. Maybe the birds taught us. Maybe not. Maybe we are just creatures in search of exaltation. We don't have much of it. Our lives are not what we deserve; they are, let us agree, in many painful ways deficient. Song turns them into something else.

"Song shows us a world that is worthy of our yearning, it shows us our selves as they might be, if we were worthy of the world. Five mysteries hold the keys to the unseen: the act of love, and the birth of a baby, and the contemplation of great art, and being in the presence of death or disaster, and hearing the human voice lifted in song. These are the occasions when the bolts of the universe fly open and we are given a glimpse of what is hidden; an eff of the ineffable. Glory bursts upon us in such hours; the dark glory of earthquakes, the slippery wonder of new life, the radiance of ...singing. Music, love, life-death."

Find the Melodious Accord Board @melodiousaccord.org

Timothy Riley, Chair, Appleton, WI	triley@...
Cynthia Simonoff, Treasurer, Brooklyn, NY	csimonoff@...
Betsy Blachly, New York, NY	bblachly@...
Charles Brown, New York, NY	no e-mail
Ann Chase, Encinitas, CA	no e-mail
Sandra Lotz Fisher, New York, NY	sfisher@...
James Heiks, Appleton, WI	jheiks@...
Jody Kerssenbrock, Crete, NE	jkerssenbrock@...
Roy Lewis, Leonia, NJ	rlewis@...
John Lundsten, Armonk, NY	jlundsten@...
Mrs. Walter Mansfield, New Canaan, CT	no e-mail
Kenneth Nafziger, Harrisonburg, VA	kmafziger@...
Jacqueline Pierce, New York, NY	jpierce@...
David Pyle, Reading, MA	dpyle@...
Ellen Taylor Sisson, New Canaan, CT	esisson@...
Pamela Warrick-Smith, Bronx, NY	no e-mail
Bruce Wilson, Silver Spring, MD	bwilson@...
Geraldine Wilson, Silver Spring, MD	gwilson@...

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