IT IS FOR ME A KIND OF LOVING: A LIFE OF SONG
Where does Song begin, if you have been a Singer for as long as you have a memory? What is a melody, when you think in poetry and music? What if your throat is only a conduit for humming the entire day and even when awake at night? And, who are you, when your try to blend and blend and blend in harmony with everyone around you? What if Song is all you really are?
These are not idle questions for me...when my throat was trapped in struggles with the thyroid gland, and needles and tubes were in it, all my terror was focused on one thought: what if I will not be able to Sing? I felt that, if I stepped through such a door, then my life would not be my own any more. I would be a different person, who I would not understand. My first language would be gone forever. How would I survive such a thing?
I can remember singing as a baby. I know that sounds far fetched. but it is true. All the first things I "said", I remember as song. I definitely recall all the songs when I was being rocked and held. all the children's songs my mother sang as well. I remember the songs my mom and dad sang in the car every where we went. all of them. I remember all the songs we learned and sang in school. and, in church, too. I hummed my way through every tune I ever heard. I learned the words to jingles on the radio, to every song that took my fancy....
Looking back, I know I must have heard English as song. Only as I grew older, did I realize that many people did not sing all day, not even in their heads, like I do and did. I was horrified when I first found out that some people don't sing at all! later I learned that many, many people don't sing. I can't figure out what goes on in their heads. Mine is always, always into a song somewhere, even while I am doing or 'thinking' things!
The Catholic Church gave me Song, too. I was happy in the Church, singing all the hymns and songs and being in the chorus! I loved being in the chorus in school, too...and in the schola, and in the Gilbert and Sullivan Musicals, when I was in High School. Singing away, all day and into the night! I even met my First Love, singing a minor role in one of those musicals...that he was a Singer, and played instruments well...he was my Music Man! Forty-plus years later, and we are together again...and much of this is because of Song. Really. We sing all the time.... He played his banjo with Pete Seeger! He went to Europe and played and toured with 'talented teens'! He toured part of Europe with his own group! He studied at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago! How I wish I had been there singing with him all of those times!...But, there were places I had to go without him, instead....
Just at that time, I was getting into Folk Music...it was the sixties...which meant wonderful SONG to me! I learned to play the guitar, simply, Very Simply, and learned to sing every song on every album I could find! Folk Music has been one of my passions in life. every day of my born life! Listing all the wondrous folk singers and musicians of those times would be almost foolish! So many songs! So many concerts! So much music to hear, and to learn and to sing-along to with others! So much melody! Funny songs. Sad songs. Historic songs. Sea songs. Irish songs. English songs. Appalachian songs. Railroad songs. Spirituals....
I suppose that, if pressed, I would have to admit that The Weavers and Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Judy Collins, Mary Black, and Kate Wolf were my most loved influences. I know hundreds of their songs! I still find magic and meaning and purpose singing with their albums and wishing they were here in my own house to sing with me!
As it is, I found many people to "sing with me" Several seasons, I sang in local choruses. Twice, I organized and promoted venues for groups...one at an Alpine Folk Club, called The Nature Friends, for about nine years. We sang Alpine Folk Music, much of it in German, wearing dirndls and other Alpine 'Trot' (costumes). The other was called simply Irish Song, and drew in community singers and friends along with the Nature Friends Group. We sang around St. Pat's Day, mainly, and were a happy, ever changing group of like-minded Irish Mutts! Several of us sang pretty 'loaded' at all times! Both groups had plenty of accompanists with button boxes, guitars, penny whistles, a banjo or two, drums, fiddles, and even a concertina! I enjoyed the Irish performers best...we'd practice at the big house I lived in with an Austrian boyfriend, for over eight years in the 1990s.
I have tried so many folk instruments, to no avail! I am a very, very awful musician! I've tried the guitar, the banjo, the mandolin, the Irish War Drum, the piano, the auto harp, and the concertina. I still can ply a soft string guitar; the mandolin (in very bad repair); my fine boron, the auto harp (in bad repair), and the concertina...an English one, which I paid off in installments until the cost was paid...it was expensive, but worth it! But, my teacher moved to the East Coast, and I never found another willing to take on a Beginner...
The auto harp was the only instrument I could actually accompany myself upon...it was fun to play...now, it needs some repairs...ah well...Fortunately, there have always been cadres of accompanists around to take on a decent singer, so I've had good company on the song stage!
A word about Voice Flute...for a short time in the Chicago area, I learned to play my own voice as a contralto Voice Flute in a Voice Orchestra...a hybrid little talent, that is useful in bridges and instrumentals here and there. I specialized in Andean Voice Flute for awhile, and still love to trill along to old tapes. Strange byway in Voice, but a bit of fun, altogether!
In the 1990s, when I was on a Creative Marathon of learning and performing, I sang at The Starry Plough in Berkeley, California, on Sunday Nights in a venue with Shay Black of the Black Family Singers...This all came about because I was managing the Irish Song Group, and learning tons of material, and enjoying that splendid genre with much enthusiasm! I was also listening and learning, from all the old tapes and new CDs I could, all the Mary Black songs I could, and all the Frances Black songs, and all their Family Songs as well! I began as a third round (after 11PM!) singer, and wound up in the first round - call after a long time...it's all solo work, and you only get to sing one song an evening, and you have to play an instrument (ergo, the Irish War Drum!) I made some nice acquaintances there, and was appreciated, often...I also was once held-up with a gun outside of the Plough, but that is another story! A real thrill was being able to harmonize with splendid and completely able performers, many of whom were well known even nationally...especially with Shay Black and his Brothers! They are Internationally Known! Such a thrill it was!
Since the year 2000, life changed for me a great deal...lots of illness and hard work and losses! No more Starry Plough or 'Groups', but always, always, always the singing and the music! I kept trying and trying to sing with people, but the opportunities were less defined because folks came and went! Many times I sang with other folk singers, and I'm a member of the San Francisco Bay Folk Club as well...I sing with friends whenever I can, but rarely solo at all anymore...Harmony is what I'm asked to do, and my harmonies are what people seem to enjoy best! My blends and harmonics have become more visceral, more like closed matched echos of the voices I'm singing with, as if my voice was theirs, in a subtle way...it''s kind of pleasant, really....
I still love to hear new singers and musicians and hear the old groups when they re band and come into town...I like to sing with my seventy year old friend, Mike Staggs, who is mainly a solo performenr. His guitar work is wonderful after all these years, and really, really good musicians join him often...he's played in the Bay Area for about forty years now. It's always an honor to be asked to sing with him...he has a National Steel Guitar from the 1930s that is a wondrous treasure. I go to his gigs just to hear that Honorable Instrument sing, all by itself!...
And now, I sing with Den. We've been singing in duet, and in trios and quartets for almost two years now...We are happiest singing with People, for our 'entertainment'! He plays the banjo, the guitar, the U-bass while we all sing in harmonies and often we're quite good! We sing in Folk and Americana and Blues and Pop genres mainly...in Open Mics and occasionally a little gig...We sing in Martinez and in Benicia here in California...we have many friends because of this wonderful Song Business!
Also, I now write Lyrics...by accident! I can write Lyrics on the drop of a dime, and I'm good at them. That's so! I have dozens of them written and about twenty or so of them are being sung/performed and even recorded by friends who are Song Writers/Performers in their own right...so far: I give each and every one of them away for free...in the spirit of Pete Seeger...my hero of long ago....
So then. I sing because I still can, thank the muses! I sing because I can't do anything else with my voice box that seems more natural to me. I sing because I have to sing.
There is a bit of an old pop tune I paraphrase some times...you must have heard it too...so you can sing it along with me...
I sing songs for people I haven't met -
People I meet once, and never meet again...
It is, for me, a Kind of Loving...
A Kind of Loving...for me....
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Holy crow! That's why we sing in the shower, in the car, telling our friend not to kill us if we sing along with "Candide" at Portland Opera this past weekend.
ReplyDeleteAlmost every mechanical rotating object has a "pitch," so you can sing to the vacuum cleaner if you want. For me, nothing escaped singing - or humming - until I underwent an MRI. The only sound is clanking. There is no "hum," so there is no "true" sound. Heavenly days, even a lawn-mower has a "pitch." But not an MRI. I don't think people feel claustrophobic because of the physical containment. I think they feel claustrophobic because of the lack of pitch in the sound of their treatment.
Okay, that may be off the mark, but everybody and his medical brother-in-law warned about claustrophobia before I went for an MRI, but my biggest complaint was want of a sound onto which I could hang a song. Heck, I do that with my Hoover vacuum cleaner all the time.