This I Believe
This I Believe essays started as an effort by NPR to broadcast people's beliefs into the world. As an effort to try and explore our own beliefs I wrote my own as an assignment for Gateway to University Honors. This I believe:
Go and find a choir video on YouTube, I dare you to watch it on mute. On mute, the idea of a choir seems really strange. A mass of people just sanding on a stage following one person’s arm movements, all of their mouths moving exactly in sync, choirs must seem odd without the sound. Go back to that video, and turn the volume up. Suddenly what was a cult-like action turns into something beautiful. Humans and birds share the unique ability to make music. Music has an addicting power to those who truly enjoy it, and those who sing in a talented choir know the power of lots of voices coming together to make something magical.
My senior year of high school I was fortunate enough to go to Kentucky’s All-State choir. Three days of the most intense work out my vocal chords had ever been through turned into the most moving musical experience I have ever had. Aside from the literally wall shaking fortissimos that a three hundred strong choir can produce, there was a palpable emotion to the music the group produced. Unlike my high school choir, the All-State Choir all wanted to be there and wanted nothing more than to sing. One of the songs on our concert was Blake Henson’s ‘My Flight For Heaven’. Before a run-through in rehearsal our director told us a forty-five minute story. His narrative detailed a car accident that he witnessed, and then went and helped the victims. He made sure to emphasize the fact that the woman who was driving had no way to contact her husband who was ahead of her in the moving van, and that she held on until she knew for a fact that her passenger, her daughter, was safe. The most heart-wrenching part was that our director had to leave the scene before he knew if the woman lived or died or if she was even safe. He made sure to lead us into his pain of never knowing her fate. As ‘My Flight For Heaven’ is about moving on to the afterlife, he then asked us to sing keeping his story in mind through the song. The next four minutes were the most expressive moments in my life. The song took us through the grieving process for the women we never knew, and in the end we found peace through the music. Our choir was one unit, and the quality of our song absolutely reflected our feelings. Any other time we sang the song, it never held the same power.
Choral music has a kind of power on people’s emotions that no other kind of music has. Human voices hit so much closer to home for most people, for me, singing with true emotion is the most vulnerable situation I can put myself in. The feeling of my alto voice intermingled with notes both above and below my own in pitch is a feeling impossible to replicate. In singing my senior All-State concert alone, my voice took the audience through joy, pain, love, and then came full circle back to happiness. Through my voice I can show more emotion than sheer expression. Through my voice I can combine the power of words with the power of music. Through my voice I can bring people to the brink of tears, or to their feet in rhythmic dancing and applause. I believe in the power of the human voice. This I believe.
Go and find a choir video on YouTube, I dare you to watch it on mute. On mute, the idea of a choir seems really strange. A mass of people just sanding on a stage following one person’s arm movements, all of their mouths moving exactly in sync, choirs must seem odd without the sound. Go back to that video, and turn the volume up. Suddenly what was a cult-like action turns into something beautiful. Humans and birds share the unique ability to make music. Music has an addicting power to those who truly enjoy it, and those who sing in a talented choir know the power of lots of voices coming together to make something magical.
My senior year of high school I was fortunate enough to go to Kentucky’s All-State choir. Three days of the most intense work out my vocal chords had ever been through turned into the most moving musical experience I have ever had. Aside from the literally wall shaking fortissimos that a three hundred strong choir can produce, there was a palpable emotion to the music the group produced. Unlike my high school choir, the All-State Choir all wanted to be there and wanted nothing more than to sing. One of the songs on our concert was Blake Henson’s ‘My Flight For Heaven’. Before a run-through in rehearsal our director told us a forty-five minute story. His narrative detailed a car accident that he witnessed, and then went and helped the victims. He made sure to emphasize the fact that the woman who was driving had no way to contact her husband who was ahead of her in the moving van, and that she held on until she knew for a fact that her passenger, her daughter, was safe. The most heart-wrenching part was that our director had to leave the scene before he knew if the woman lived or died or if she was even safe. He made sure to lead us into his pain of never knowing her fate. As ‘My Flight For Heaven’ is about moving on to the afterlife, he then asked us to sing keeping his story in mind through the song. The next four minutes were the most expressive moments in my life. The song took us through the grieving process for the women we never knew, and in the end we found peace through the music. Our choir was one unit, and the quality of our song absolutely reflected our feelings. Any other time we sang the song, it never held the same power.
Choral music has a kind of power on people’s emotions that no other kind of music has. Human voices hit so much closer to home for most people, for me, singing with true emotion is the most vulnerable situation I can put myself in. The feeling of my alto voice intermingled with notes both above and below my own in pitch is a feeling impossible to replicate. In singing my senior All-State concert alone, my voice took the audience through joy, pain, love, and then came full circle back to happiness. Through my voice I can show more emotion than sheer expression. Through my voice I can combine the power of words with the power of music. Through my voice I can bring people to the brink of tears, or to their feet in rhythmic dancing and applause. I believe in the power of the human voice. This I believe.