Shake a Tambourine
By Andrea Lingle
I have never met a throat singer, but I do know that they exist. To sing in harmony with oneself is, according to Wikipedia, possible, and much more likely, apparently, if one happens to be a monk of some kind. But, I can only sing in harmony with another voice. If I refuse to share the stage, I will never sing more than a melody. Even Pavarotti has an accompanist.
We have talked about the radicallity of community, the interconnectedness of community, and the humility of Divine Perfection. Today we will be exploring the richness of community’s complexity. Because humans, generally, cannot create harmony alone. In his book, Longing for the Harmonies, Frank Wilczek explores the connection of music to physics, fundamental reality, and human longing. He writes:
[Johannes] Keppler was obsessed with an idea…This idea is that the workings of the world are governed by relations of harmony and, in particular, that music is associated with the motion of the planets—the music of the spheres. (Wilczek, Longing for the Harmonies, 12–13)
I, as a lifelong musician, imagine that language developed through lullabies. Long before the Top 40 or Bach or Medieval polyphony, before the ney, santoor, or oud, and even before the psalm and the lyre, parents assuredly sang to their fretful babies. I hope that the first word to develop was, “Love,” but I imagine it was actually, “Hush.” Even those who would never elbow their way onto center stage, or any place on any stage, will croon to a fretful baby or a homesick puppy or hum as they stroll along a beloved shoreline. Music is deep in our bones.
My brother got married last weekend. It was a gentle, backyard affair that honored family new and old. During the service we gathered around this budding family and offered them our corporate blessing. And we sang. More minutes were devoted to singing than speaking. After the ceremony, we ate, shared toasts, then we danced for hours. As songs came on from different decades, different collections of people would dance and sing along. We soaked the bride and groom in music. Why? Because life is hard, and partnerships are difficult. They will need a community to help them along, and we can all join in the chorus with Weezer. Music invites us all to participate: the bride, the groom, generations of family, friends, bar tenders, dish washers, passers-by, and the planets rolling around the sun.
That is the way of community. Each of us, like each of the elements, bring our own timber and voice to the composition that is unfolding in little corner restaurants in Washington DC and soup kitchens in East Dallas and in the forests of Asheville. Music speaks the pain of living. Music celebrates the joy of hope. Music gives you a pathway toward the sublime.
And Music speaks best when it is incarnated by two or three or a thousand.
There is always room for you. The circle dance can always be widened. Even for you, there in the waiting room of grief. I know you are sore and tired. I know you can’t imagine that the world wants to hear your voice, not now. Not yet. If you even to open your mouth, surely your heart would break and the tears would choke the song.
That’s ok. The FrontBottoms put it this way in their song, “Twin Sized Mattress.”
This is for the lions living in the wiry broke down frames
Of my friends' bodies
When the flood water comes, it ain't gonna be clear
It's gonna look like mud
But I will help you swim, I will help you swim
I'm gonna help you swim…
I'm sure that we could find something for you to do on stage
Maybe shake a tambourine or when I sing, you sing harmonies
Community is knowing that flood water is never clear, but even the mud encrusted can “shake a tambourine.”
I hope that when my brother and his partner face the flood waters, they will remember the hours of joy we spent singing Them into being.
If our eyes were more perfect, we would see the atoms sing. A race of being who had this sort of direct experience would no doubt include a high proportion of poets and atomic scientists. (Wilczek, Longing for the Harmonies, 15)
If you feel inclined, comment with one word or one sentence that answers: Who is your counterpoint?