Making Music: Don't Overthink It

On Saturday night a decent sized snowfall was supposed to take place in the town where I live, predicted up to 7 inches. I was excited, because I like snow. I was also excited because it meant that services at our church would be cancelled the next day. Our church has limited parking, and when services conflict with a snowstorm—and the work of the snow plows in clearing the roads—locals choose to have their roads tended instead of their souls.

I was hoping church would be cancelled because I was scheduled to sing in the service. I don’t know how it works in other faith traditions, but at our church we have a combination of congregational singing, choir music, and music performed by individuals or small groups. Our director of music asked me to sing an old hymn, set to new music. Singing in church is a weird sort of exercise in performing for an audience while avoiding drawing attention to the fact that you’re performing for an audience. Unlike music performed on stage, sacred music is intended to point to something far greater than the vehicle of delivery, that something being God. So the singer is set up for failure right from the beginning.

Saturday night came and went and the snow fell, several inches of snow. It was one of those wet, heavy snowfalls that linger on tree branches and make the world seem like a magical place, strangely clean and perfect. But by 7am the snow began to melt and the snow plows roamed the streets with nothing to do. Church was not cancelled.

So I went to church, and sang. I looked out over the congregation, with all those staring, upturned faces, and thought of the people listening — all their stories, some of which I knew, some of which I didn’t. So many terrible things had happened to the people in those pews; the people in the pews had no doubt done terrible things. Illness, betrayal, death. Yet here we are, together. We all left our warm beds and traveled through the slush and snow and made our way here, where we sing old hymns that no one can remember anymore, unless we go to church to sing them.

Church ended, and we all went back to our own houses, the snow nearly gone, the world back to its boring, dirty self. At home I went online, and roamed around the internet, following the bread crumbs laid down by social media, when a post on Twitter led me back to Steemit (where I should have been in the first place).

@drkent posted a song on @dtube, one of his many amazing recordings, called I Neither Have a Dollar Nor a Friend [Country Blues]. https://steemit.com/dsound/@drkent/i-neither-have-a-dollar-nor-a-friend-country-blues

It is a Doc Watson tune, lyrically rich and musically sad and pretty much perfect. Coming across it as I did, out of nowhere, this gem of a song, reminded me not to overthink it when it comes to making music. For the second time in the same day, I was reminded of how much we need to make and hear music together, whatever this means. An old hymn at church, Doc Watson on the internet -- music cuts across place and time, every time.

Doc Watson In Real Life [photo: Guitar Noise]