THE REASONS WHY WE SING

Alice Parker delivered the following as the Keynote Speech at The Phenomenon of Singing International Symposium in St John's, Newfoundland, Canada on June 28, 2007. We are pleased to reproduce it here for the benefit of those who could not be present

It is an honor to be invited to Newfoundland to speak to a roomful of people gathered to celebrate singing in all its aspects. I instantly feel at home in this place, and wish to thank you both for the invitation and the warm welcome I have already received

It's worthwhile to examine the widest possible parameters of our field: why do we sing? What causes song to stay in our memories, awaken our senses, and give such satisfaction as a group endeavor? I know that my list of seven reasons will be incomplete and crying out for revision, but it is at least a starting place

1. Physics.

   Sound exists. It was here long before we were, and our ears and voices were formed in response to its laws. If we go as far back in time as I can imagine, I recall the first chapter of Genesis: "And God breathed upon the face of the water." What happens? The water vibrates -- and contemporary physicists tell us that vibration is at the heart of all matter. Thus sound waves emanate from the beginning of the world, and vibrate still all around us. When we sing, we are part of the laws of physics. But those laws encompass more than sound: there are the physics of pitch: fundamentals, overtones, timbres. The physics of time are problematic: Einstein puzzled over these, and I shall not attempt to follow his reasoning. But pitches exist in time, and their consecutive placement releases forces that do follow the laws of energy. How does something get started . . keep moving . . and then come to an end? There is no musical notation that encompasses this energy, but it is basic to all music-making.

2. Physiology.

   Ever since Darwin, students of anatomy have studied the similarity of bodily structures in different species and within each one. Our ears are very similar to other mammals -- but our voices are quite different. We breathe with the same kinds of lungs, and react to stimuli with similar responses. Our brains are similar to the apes, but larger and apt to get us into all kinds of difficulties as well as triumphs. And our hearts -- well, the physiology is similar, but when we get into the wider definition that encompasses emotional states, we seem to be unique. Except, don't dogs feel joy and shame? Don't horses respond to those 'horse whisperers'? And even cats know when someone dislikes them -- though their reaction is often the opposite of a child's! So -- music was not made for us: we are made for music, with ears, voices, breath, minds and hearts already formed for singing when we are born into this world.

3. Communication.

   And we're not born alone into this world -- a baby cannot survive without care from its own kind, and communication is a basic necessity. The baby responds with cries for attention which most wonderfully use the voice-box: lungs, vocal cords, whole body working with muscular precision -- no unnecessary tensions -- to produce the sound. We don't have to teach them how to do that -- and we must respond to the results! I was and am fascinated with the way children learn to speak. It seems clear to me that we are born knowing how to sing, and have to learn over several years how to speak -- the vowels and consonants and words and phrases.

   We live in community, and song is a language that unites us more surely than any made up of words. It unifies a group, teaching not only the culture but one's identity within the culture. It is the language of the heart, of our deepest feelings, of the context that lies beneath the notes and words of any song. If this emotional content is not present in our singing, we are not making music -- but are 'as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal'. In Corinthians 13:1, St. Paul is referring to speaking without 'charity' (in the King James version) -- but other translations say 'love', and what else is the language of the heart but 'love'? We teach love when we sing

   Who were the first humans who spoke, and what did they say? Was it information they voiced ('storm'. 'elephant'.) or emotional expression ('I love you')? I lean toward the emotion side, yet Genesis 2:19 has Adam gleefully naming everything in sight. ('Me Adam, you Eve.') And did they sing before they spoke, following the lead of the birds and animals around them? Thank goodness no one can ever truly answer that question, but it is fun to ponder

4. Song Exists.

   We're surrounded with songs -- all over the world people sing, and many melodies live on from generation to generation. We sing because these songs are there, and we follow in the paths of our forbears when we bring the melodies back to life. What is a song? It is most certainly not what is written on a page, for no sound is there, only black symbols on white paper. In a very real way, a song is only a possibility: a certain combination of words, rhythms and pitches that form a memorable whole. But it does not exist until it is sounded, and because we are human, each re-sounding is different: the singers are different, the times, the compulsions, the emotions. The page implies that the song is always the same. In reality, the song is always different, just as each maple leaf is different from another

   When we sing, we are living at the point where space crosses time: where the world of pitch and the world of rhythm intersect. We must balance both forces, and there seem to be an endless number of ramifications from that intersection. The way we speak is infinitely subtle: think of a person deaf from birth, who has laboriously mastered the raw materials of speech. The one quality she cannot ever achieve is the flow of phrase upon phrase, the use of time to connect and separate, the immeasurability of accent, of slowing or speeding, of emotional content. The babble of infants embodies all this before they learn the words, and only growing up hearing, speaking and singing the language teaches its subtleties

   Pattern is another quality of song. The raw materials of sound are gathered together into phrases ('a phrase is what you breathe at the end of') which together make 'a memorable whole'. A song which lasts is exactly right -- just as that maple leaf is exactly right, or that wave crashing on the beach, or that cloud dissolving into the air as you watch. Nature's patterns are all around us, and when we follow them most closely, our work fits into the universal design. As a composer, I often have the feeling that I am not 'making up' what I write, but following the song where it wants to go. I've learned to trust that sense. It leads me to places both simpler and more true than my mind can fashion

   So any song is a pattern, a possibility, endlessly recreating itself as it is picked up by different singers, or groups, at different times and places. It may begin as a folksong, or an improvised melody, or a composed theme. Its settings are infinitely variable: in counterpoint, or harmony, in instrumentation and/or function. There is real danger when song becomes a commodity, as in our culture: when it is individually 'owned', bought and sold like a chair or a spoon. For in truth, song is a natural resource as much as air, land and water, entrusted to us as custodians during our lifetimes, to be handed down to the next generations

5. Games.

   I think we're apt to take music too seriously. Certainly many profound thoughts have been expressed through tones, but the other side of that is the lighter one: the game of sound. Ludus tonalis the ancients called it -- the intellectual fascination of playing with pitches, rhythm and words in combination. It's not that notation can be a variety of code, with all kinds of hidden meanings -- it's that the unexpected can occur, resulting in a wink or even a belly-laugh. Music shares that trait with spoken language -- and I'm very suspicious of any language which has no room for humor

   This humor can occur in a single-line melody when either the pitch or the rhythm moves in an unexpected way. But the fundamental game corresponds to that of a ball thrown back and forth by two people. They don't have to be laughing -- the game is to keep the ball aloft, which means submitting ones-self to the laws of physics: watching that ball as it approaches, catching it and sending it back. This is the game of counterpoint: the answer to a line of melody is another line of melody, and the intent is to keep the song going. It can become deadly serious and mind-and-body-stretching -- but it's still a game

   Which leads me to think of work songs: can these also be considered play? I think so, in that they lighten the task. We wouldn't sing as we work if it made the work more onerous: we do it partly to unify the rhythm of a shared task, and partly to divert our minds from a repeated motion. It's precisely that game of texts-and-tunes that makes the work both easier and more enjoyable -- or bearable. The pleasure is in the reciprocal sharing -- the passing back and forth of sounds from the group here, now, that unite and delight those taking part

6. Psychological

   Melodies have the capacity to tap every human emotion. If we are bored as we sing, it's because the emotional content of the song is dormant. My mother had a sign over her desk which read: "You're only bored if you wish you were doing something else". In singing, that would read: "The music is only boring if you're not thinking about it". Our culture has a passion for loud, fast music, and even in church it's felt that music is best used as a kind of stimulant. But that's a strange curbing of expressive possibilities. After all, joy and sorrow are opposites of the same emotional coin, and complement each other in music as in life. Somehow, if we're suffering, it can be immensely healing to sing a sad song: it affords an outlet for those otherwise inexpressible surges of regret and longing. I'd like to take that a step further, and suggest that if we're harboring revengeful or threatening urges against someone or something, we can let those out in song and have their negative impact lessened. We perform the act imaginatively, so to speak, and thus lessen the chance of physical outbreaks of force

   "We are an army that sings but does not slay", said the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. What a lesson for the world to learn. . . I think that we cannot really sing the Easter hymns unless on Good Friday we have sung (and meant it): "Crucify him!" That's the dark side of each of our minds speaking, and music releases it. Out of the darkness comes light -- and song can be a valuable safety valve for the emotions

7. The Whole Being.

   I've read recently that scientists are debating the value of music to human survival. It doesn't contribute to the future of the race as do sex or hunger: what is its use? As I ponder this, it occurs to me that singing may be the only action I take in which all of my capacities are used at the same time. Body, ears, lungs, breath, vocal cords, mind, spirit, imagination, memory, creative and recreative powers are all focused on one object. This may be one of the necessities of human existence, along with air and water, food and shelter. That line of song issuing from my mouth may enter other bodies, minds and hearts, resulting in a synergy which lifts all of us out of this mortal plane into an ideal place. In song we affirm and transcend our common humanity, overcoming the differences between us, and fulfilling that vision of a world at peace that seems so unattainable right now. Song is both our release and our hope

Let's sing.

Alice Parker

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THE VIEW FROM HERE

The word is abundance, as far as I can see. My tomato plants have never been so laden-down -- I've had to re-stake them twice to keep the fruit off of the ground. Of course the tomatoes are still very green and hard -- but they're huge! I can't wait to taste one when it's ripe

And all the foliage is full green in color -- about twenty different shades from my window, from the small, lighter birch leaves to the many-hued coleus to the massive maples, oaks and evergreens that can seem almost black in comparison. We seem to have had just the right combination of rain and sun to make all things flourish, and the farm markets are a profusion of local produce. I belong to a co-op run by friends and neighbors, and it's an experience to come home with baskets of new kinds of greens, tiny sweet carrots and turnips (the white kind that taste almost like water chestnuts in a salad), blueberries, herbs, and always something unexpected. I take two vases and fill them with fresh-cut flowers (part of my 'share') -- and also have the option of buying fresh eggs and goat cheese. This is all health-benefiting, for me and the land and the whole area

We had two days of rain this week -- the kind that starts gently and then grows into a soaking down-pour that makes the brook across the road rush down its mini-canyon. When the sun returns, everything is fresh-washed, with the plants and flowers (and weeds) filled with new energy to leaf out once again. The farmers are hard-put to keep up with the mowing

The message could be read that we should all be creative and productive, nurturing all those around us, accepting the sun and rain with gratitude and equanimity. It provides a lovely balance to the destruction that occupies much of the world right now, giving us a glimpse of Eden, of how things were designed to be. When will we learn to be a graceful part of this abundance, sharing it with each other and all in need?

Alice Parker

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THE 2007-08 MELODIOUS ACCORD
FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM
Study with Alice Parker

October 14-21 2007

Composers Workshop.
For those wishing to share their work with a small, non-judgmental group. The focus is on setting texts and writing for voices, through daily assignments and discussions

January 15-18, 2008

Score Study in New York City.
Three days of intensive Score Study in Manhattan. There is reasonable housing available, and time to explore the city's cultural attractions

Visit our website: www.melodiousaccord.org for more information and announcement of 2008 program dates

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Contents:

The Reasons Why We Sing

The View From Here

The Family Reunion Is Here

Fellowship Program

Home Page
The News Stand