2020-12-14
Tell me the old, old story
I have to write "in haste" this week... as the ancient letter writers used to say when they were short on time and the post chaise was preparing to leave without their letter. We are less than two weeks before Christmas, and I assure you all the sacred musicians I know right now are pressed for time.
I did want to tell you all about a project that has been front and center in the life of my family since Thanksgiving. The annual Christmas pageant is coming together as I write; my intrepid brother-in-law is the videographer, my wife is the author, I am the music director, my daughter is the choreographer. We do this project every year; but 2020 being the disaster that is has been, we have had to change >all< the rules this time. No 8AM gatherings at church, coffee in hand, while sleepy parents bring small angels, shepherds, townsmen and sages into the sanctuary. COVID-19 has stopped that for now.
But something else has taken its place, something we could have barely imagined at this time last year: a virtual pageant. My wife has engineered Saturday morning virtual gatherings that include 26 kids. During these rehearsals we have used the tech tools on hand to accumulate video and audio that will permit my brother-in-law to assemble the first pageant "movie" in the history of our community. Having seen some of the clips coming together, I can tell you it is going to be exceptional.
My disappointment in this project has been with the limitations on music. There is no practical way to get a large squad of kids to sing in a videoconference and make something good of it. Instead, we have been compelled to do what a lot of colleagues have been doing since last April... encouraging singers to sing to prerecorded tracks and to send the result back to the music director to mix and hand off to the videographer. Far less than ideal, but at least it is something, while I wait for my COVID-19 vaccine in my Christmas stocking.
That which I care about the most, however, telling the Nativity story, is definitely happening. I am regularily blown away on the first morning of rehearsal Thanksgiving weekend, as lots of wiggly bodies squeeze into the choir room chairs and sing our music. They forget nothing; all except the newcomers remember, usually word for word, the poetry embedded in these familiar carols and hymns. They remember the story; they are too young to have all the intellectual and logical reservations we tired adults have with the Luke and Matthew narratives. Kids get this story instantly, and they never forget it. It amazes me.
One of the big complaints I have with the history of art music in the last century was the push away from narrative. The parameters of music were so often focused on abstract treatments of rhythm, pitch and tone color that this fundamental human need to >sink in< to a story, to lose oneself in a narrative, became more rare. I am not just talking about the rise of dissonance, arrhythmia and atonality, mind you; I can think of scores in those dialects that do a fine job of telling a story. This phenomenon is something different, and it was really big with academic musicians in the second half of the 20th century. We see it less these days, I think, and I have a pretty good idea why. The kids participating in the Pageant know exactly what academic music lacked... a compelling story.
So I will continue to hang with the Pageant kids. The Nativity story helps them answer existential questions today and as they grow. Similar to the myths in all human societies that have served to give life meaning, it helps them find their spot in the universe. There will be time enough in coming decades for them to weigh the implications of Jesus' ministry, execution by the state and resurrection.
If you have more questions about this topic, don't hesitate to contact me and we can chat. If you would like to see the Pageant, drop me a line and I will get the necessary clearances to do so... after Christmas!
K
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