The finest hour that I have seen Is the one that comes between The edge of night and the break of day It’s when the darkness rolls away.
Across the Great Divide, Kate Wolf Everyone should sing something.
Don’t care if you can’t carry a tune in a bucket. Every now and then we all need to sit with other people and sing a song. Harmonize. Delight in the sound of human voices tangled together.
Remember elementary school music class? We sang Woody Guthrie songs, old folksongs, 1940s happy songs. And every Christmas there was a concert. All of our parents came and applauded our efforts. We fell off-key and out of rhythm at times but they laughed and told us we did good just by getting up there and trying.
There was always a pretty blonde girl with a beautiful soprano voice and an attitude to match, and a boy with the voice of an angel, who suffered some good natured teasing, but was the envy of the other boys. Girls liked the boys who could sing.
Then we grew up.
There was a time in my life when all I did was work. I was single so no one waited at home for me after 5 p.m. So I worked. One day something just snapped. I marched down to Swallow Hill Music School and signed up for one singing class. Monday and Wednesday from 6 to 8 p.m. It forced me to leave work at a reasonable hour for just those two days every week for two months.
Within a year, I was spending four nights a week at Swallow Hill. I studied music theory and marveled at the pure logic of it. I tried to learn to play a variety of instruments–piano, dulcimer, concertina. Despite excellent teachers, I just wasn’t very good at any of them.
But I could sing.
One Monday night I worked up the nerve to walk into the Denver Folklore Center and announce to all the men with guitars who were gathered there that I was a harmony singer and would like to join the jam session. They welcomed me. Those were joyful years.
But sometimes life takes turns that we don’t expect. I moved from Denver. Then I moved even further away to the Four Corners area and made a commitment to stay here when I married last year. Life has its normal struggles, and has been good. But something was missing.
I missed Swallow Hill and Denver Folklore. I missed singing with all those men with guitars. I needed the music.
It’s one thing to listen to and appreciate music. In the car or the shower I am Adele. Yes, I can hit all those high notes. But that’s her work and just a technical exercise for me. It is completely different to sit in a group, decide a song and work out the arrangement and the harmonies. There is a communication in music that doesn’t really happen any other time.
So recently I walked into Canyon Music’s Bluegrass Jam group and announced that I would like to sing with them. It’s good that there are some women in the group. It allows me to create some great harmonies. When I listen carefully to whoever is singing lead. follow their style and adjust my voice to compliment theirs, I feel a complicity in melody that seems to elevate me just a few inches above ground.
Everyone should find a way to make music simply for the sake of making music. You don’t have to aspire to be a star. You don’t need a perfect voice. All you need is a little time and a heart open to sharing a bit of fun entertaining yourself and others.
And who knows? You might find a little joy.
Jo Ann Viola Salazar of Durango (joann.salazar@gmail.com) blogs at The2TrailerMarriage.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is an online-only column and has not been edited.
