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Moving Music
Sep. 8th, 2007 10:39 pm"Is everything alright?" the teacher suddenly asks during this morning's choir practice. I'm a bit baffled at her question and turn to look at the twelve year old newbie sitting two chairs away from me. She's sniffling and hiccupping, and the only thing she manages to say is that the music is so moving.
We've been singing John Rutter's For the Beauty of the Earth since last year, and more and more I've come to compare it with a pot of honey. The song has the same syrupy consistence, but it's a ball to sing, like it's a ball to lick a spoon full of honey: too much makes your teeth ache.
John Rutter makes my teeth ache (just look it up on YouTube and you'll know what I'm hinting at). I hardly feel any emotion when I sing it. I just count the bars and try to sing the notes on my pages.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lijability said the other day: "I cannot imagine that when you sing an aria or other song that you do not impart your own emotions, your spirit, into that song." Today I realised we were evoking emotions that weren't even there in the first place. It's all technique – especialy in this stage of practicing. You listen to each other, trying to make sure you start and end at the same time, you look at the teacher, listen to the accompaniment on the piano. I don't think about emotion. Until a new girl starts to bawl over a pot of honey.
We've been singing John Rutter's For the Beauty of the Earth since last year, and more and more I've come to compare it with a pot of honey. The song has the same syrupy consistence, but it's a ball to sing, like it's a ball to lick a spoon full of honey: too much makes your teeth ache.
John Rutter makes my teeth ache (just look it up on YouTube and you'll know what I'm hinting at). I hardly feel any emotion when I sing it. I just count the bars and try to sing the notes on my pages.
lijability said the other day: "I cannot imagine that when you sing an aria or other song that you do not impart your own emotions, your spirit, into that song." Today I realised we were evoking emotions that weren't even there in the first place. It's all technique – especialy in this stage of practicing. You listen to each other, trying to make sure you start and end at the same time, you look at the teacher, listen to the accompaniment on the piano. I don't think about emotion. Until a new girl starts to bawl over a pot of honey.
