music, mayhem and mystery

Friday morning a young boy, twelve years old, the grandson of dear friends, sat at my upright piano and began to play. The first notes of "Fuer Elise" sparkled as he played the piece from memory. His technique was impressive. But the soulfulness of his playing caught my ear. Many people can play musical instruments but relatively few play with their souls showing. Zachary’s instinctive revealing of himself through music took me on a time travel trip back to the old farmhouse in Georgia... my twelve year old self sitting in front of that same old piano... at the beginning of a life long love affair with music.
Mrs. Drew, my first teacher, was a quiet, self-effacing woman who came to our elementary school every Wednesday to teach piano. Our parents had negotiated with the school to allow her to teach in the old canning plant that sat on the school grounds. Many of us lived far out in the country and the only way our parents could provide private music lessons was to have them at school. Every Wednesday I made my way from the classroom to the old piano in the canning plant and Mrs. Drew. My world was expanding at the speed of light as I learned to play the piano.
Such joy came to me from all the music she taught me to play... Face to Face with Christ My Savior, one of my first recital pieces...The Rustle of Spring from memory, all forty-eleven pages of it... Bach, Beethoven, Broadway... anything and everything I wanted to play, she showed me how.
Mrs. Morris and Mrs. Davis, the first ministers of music for me in church, included me as a child in the music life of our congregation. I was asked to lead the Sunbeam Choir, pre-school children, when I was twelve. Mrs. Davis asked me to accompany Sunday evening worship on the piano that year also and taught me some of the tricks of the trade. When I was fourteen, Mrs. Morris let me sing in the adult choir and I learned to sing alto.
When I walked into Lowndes County High School as a lowly freshman with my Rat beanie bobby pinned to my hair, the first person I saw was Mrs. Dorothy Carter, the Glee Club Director. She and her husband were Yankee transplants and she had a style I had never seen before. Her jet black shoulder length hair was styled in an asymmetrical flip... her heels were high, very high... her makeup was flawless and complete... her jewelry and clothing were a little flashy but not over the top. Her appearance told me this was a woman who knew a world far different from mine. To this day I do not know how she found me but I was immediately the accompanist for our high school Glee Club. Now I had four music teachers, all very different but equally gifted. As our drama and Glee Club teacher, she drove her students to competitions and literary meets all over south Georgia teaching all the way. Mrs. Carter taught me the art of performance... how to showcase your skills... how to accompany a Glee Club and a soloist without overwhelming the voices... how to live with passion and zest and verve that translates to your music.
And then came college... Valdosta State College in my hometown of Valdosta, Georgia. I was living at home and driving to school each day. The Baptist Student Union building became my home on campus. I went there between classes, to eat lunch and go to the mid-day devotionals, to hang out or study (not much) and to sing. There I met my next minister of music, Harold Cartee, the Minister of Music at First Baptist Church Valdosta. He was a short man with a devilish twinkle in his eye, full of laughter and song. He taught me so much about the wider world of sacred music... the history of shaped note singing and the music schools that taught uneducated people to sing... God’s Trombones... classical sacred music, gospel... pop sacred music (in our day that was choruses mostly, much like some of the pop Christian music of today), spirituals... hymn arrangements... the combination of any and all of the above at the same time. He was an amazing teacher for me. His humor and passion for all music in the church guided me to an appreciation for the many different ways we can approach God through music.
There have been other wonderful music teachers and ministers of music in my life but these were the teachers in my youth who helped me grow into the larger world of sacred music. For them, all music was sacred, inspired by God, a gift for our souls, a delight for our ears, an opportunity to live large and lift praise to our Creator in our one of a kind way. I never thanked them enough for their kindness to me and the doors they opened for me. But their legacy lives on every time I hear a child play and I say "You have such a gift"... when I sing a hymn that began as a shaped note hymn... when I hear little children sing and see the faces glow from the inside out... when our congregation sings a capella and the voices are pure and sweet. Thanks be to God for the Psalmist’s lesson... make a joyful noise unto the Lord. If the only instrument you play is your CD player, get a penny whistle and play, try a harmonica or a mouth harp, play spoons, bang on a pot bottom with a wooden spoon... make a joyful noise today. Experience the wonderful mystery of joyful musical mayhem offered up as a gift to God.


Below is a love letter I read in church yesterday to our new minister of music. Being in choir has been a saving grace during my lenten season of death and grief.

It has been a difficult spring for me... too much death and grief... one more coming. Choir practice has been a saving grace for me, Gary. No matter how difficult or painful my Wednesday has been, I count on choir practice to get me through the rest of the week. I know I will get a back rub. There will be lots of laughter. Between Ann Mojonnier, Dorri Sherril, you, me... lots of wise cracks and joking and blessed laughter. I will sing and for a brief moment in time, I will be lifted up out of myself into another world. You will pray for us... for Tad and Pam when Tad’s mother died... for Hal and Donna when their grandchild was sick... for the good of the cause, as you say. I have learned how to sing Gawd and cawhm instead of God and come. But the most important lesson you have taught me came last Wednesday night.
You introduced the hymns for Sunday and asked if we knew them. When we saw "Down at the Cross" Dorri said "We have never sung that song in church as long as I have been here" while John Widener and Michael high fived each other. That is us in a nutshell... liberation theology, feminist theology, covenant theology, creation theology, no theology... You are pushing us outside our comfort zone with music and I thank you for it. When we sing "Down at the Cross" you not only honor Mary Etta and Carolyn and John and Russell and Michael and me and others for whom this is the music from our past that we love, you honor the African American churches in our denomination that sing this song, too. When you sing the contemporary version of Hosanna like we did last week, Jan Buchanan and Cara Pollard get to sing their song and we touch those congregations who sing this music also. We sing a hymn with words written by one of our own, Penny and our own special voice is heard. As a MethodistPresbyterianEpiscopalLutheranJewish musician, you know the wider world of church music and I thank you for giving us this gift...the gift of singing from our whole hymnal...not just bits and pieces of it.
The mantras you have given us in choir are these... It is more important to make music than to be perfect ... a good example was the Sunday you were so nervous you forgot to give us our pitch and we sounded awful. You stopped us in mid-song, gave us our pitch and started us over. The second mantra... listen to each other... balance your sound... basses come up... altos sing louder... tenors, sing softer... the harmony and balance that happens when all the voices sing listening to each other. We said in our music survey a few years ago that we wanted diversity in our music... we are getting it... now I hope you can teach us as a congregation to sing in harmony... balanced... listening...with all our voices represented in worship music. I can’t wait to see what we sing next Sunday... a capella? Jazz? Classical? Gospel? Contemporary? Thank you... be patient with us... we are a work in progress.