A funny thing happened on the way to Christmas last year. I became a children’s choir director. My son’s choir director left rather suddenly in November and at a regrouping meeting of the parents, I raised my hand and said I would be willing to help keep the choir going. Next thing I knew, I was in front of the congregation guiding eight kids through “Away in a Manger” at the Christmas concert.
Although I never expected, hoped or sought to be a choir director, the choir and I made it through the rest of season and now I am coming back for more in the Fall. Choir has been a vital part of my life since I was four, the same age my son is now. Whether or not he chooses to pursue choir singing, my husband and I felt strongly that he should be introduced to the activity early. There are a lot of choir geeks on both sides of the family, so he could come by it very naturally.
We are involved in the music program at Our Savior’s Lutheran Church primarily because they have choirs for the youngest choristers. I have spent the summer learning about choir directing and selecting a repertoire for the upcoming season. In the process of communicating with the Our Savior’s Director of Worship, Music and the Arts, Martin Morley, I happened to include a phrase in an email stating “I think of music as a metaphor for life.” Martin emailed me back “I want to hear more from you about ‘music as a metaphor for life’ when you’ve got time!”
Oh-oh. I didn’t think I was going to have to back up a quick email ditty with actual thought. I hadn’t intended to say anything trite, but I was speaking more from a visceral level than something I can actually articulate. Now Martin, unknowingly, was challenging me to substantiate it.
Initially, I thought of the “music as a soundtrack for life” idea in which we all can recall musical pieces from certain eras of our lives or from specific events that happened personally, nationally or internationally. When we hear these songs, we are immediately taken back to a time and place, whether we want to revisit it or not. We either seek out the appropriate music or the music seeks us out to compile the soundtrack of our lives.
Brides and grooms pick a “theme song” for their first dance at their wedding. This song has meaning for them and is a musical expression of their relationship. Brides and grooms who don’t normally dance will even take dance lessons in order to properly celebrate this song. That is how important this specific musical symbol is in their lives.
We all know people, and maybe you’re one of them, who can quote a song lyric when it is apropos to a conversation we are involved in. Some people sing these lyrics. Some people find that annoying. I wonder how many song lyrics pop into people’s brains at the time of conversation but aren’t shared. It’s as if our brains are constantly Googling lyrical search words and sometimes, we get a direct hit and feel compelled to share it.
Music is constantly with us, whether we seek it or not. We sing to celebrate a birthday. We sing to mourn the passing of a life. Music underscores war, revolution, hardship, discovery, triumph and tradition. Music is a common language between humankind. It would seem music and life are inseparable partners, and I suddenly have to appreciate the profoundness of the sage bumper sticker that reads, “Life without music would be a mistake.”
Coincidentally, it was something Martin himself wrote about the arts in general that helped me come to my final conclusion that music is the audible representation of the spirit of life. He wrote, “Artistic expression through music, visual arts and dance gives us avenues of connection with our Higher Power: the creative and re-creative force which made us, lifts us up, and inspires us to live with both passion and compassion.”
“Inspiration” and “spirit” come from the Latin word “spiritus” meaning “breath.” For me, music is a metaphor for life because music is the breath of life.