Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Music

Maybe there's an advantage in being unmusical: I can listen to music and be blissfully unaware of a loose note here or a dangling harmony over there. Or whatever.

Three or four groups sang at the reception on Saturday. I was enjoying listening to them when I had the sudden thought: "I wonder if they're actually good."

So I asked Byran afterwards. "Well, this one group blended really well, and this other one...naaah, they weren't so good, and..."

That was all news to me.

I classify music as either ugly or pretty. I love listening to music but I can't pick out different parts to save my life (except I can identify Konrad's bass on AHQ cd's), I think all my children sing wonderfully and have to be informed by their Aunt Rosie which ones are more gifted than others, and I still lip-sync convincingly when singing beside Rosie-type singers at church.

But then, I can listen to mediocre groups and get teary-eyed because they sound so nice. It's not all bad, not being musical.

Quote of the Day:
"I will be here..."
--one of the groups at the wedding that made me teary-eyed. Hey, anyone can sing that song and I start sniffing.

9 comments:

  1. Amen to the message!

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  2. Exactly. I had to leave the Mennonites because I couldn't harmonize. (kidding :-)

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  3. chinese vases??!! Will somebody please tell me how these people find me?

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  4. I had 14 comments on a post the other day, and they were all spam. Took awhile to delete. You can delete them. You can also require a verification code, for people who comment. These spam machines can't type read and type in the code. Check out your blog control page for the option.

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  5. Julana, you are hysterical!

    Dorcas, you are precious. Musical snobbery makes me angry and very huffy.

    Selle leight sedda ushed geigh un yeah kepp in an heighsleigh lough schteka un net vidda ough comma...........

    Oh I am so bad!

    Ag

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  6. Ag, you are also hysterical. I collapsed on my computer desk, laughing.
    Ok, to appease the curious non-dutchies, Ag merely suggested that musical snobs could put their heads in a place where, um, I suppose they could hear themselves sing but the rest of us couldn't.

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  7. Oh that was so decently put Dorcas. I must say, you interpret very politely.

    Suddenly I feel as though I must sing....."anyone can sing when the sun's shining bright, but you need a song in your heart at night."

    It's the mental pictures that kill you!

    Ag

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  8. Dorcas, I forgot that you consider yourself unmusical. I think it's great that you can still appreciate The Messiah, and it doesn't just sound to you like a bunch of warbling, screechy sopranos and basses that are trying to sound high and mighty. . . . That's how I imagine it sounds to some people. I grew up listening to it and came to love it partly by virtue of being so familiar with it.

    Just tonight at church while we were singing, I was thinking about the fact that good singing is a nice part of our culture, but not a Biblical imperative, and it's probably also the part of our culture that would be hardest for me to give up if we would ever be called to leave to go to the mission field or a church plant, etc. I do have to watch myself for musical snobbery. - Especially if the consequence would be whatever horrible, unspeakable thing Ag said!

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  9. I often wondered how our Native friends felt when they came to our house and heard some of the classical music we had on. Many times we would put on music that was more culturally sensitive.

    Ilva

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