Laurel Massé

Wherever there is love

Because I lived in England when I was little, because I know all the verses of God Save the Queen, because I believe in the healing properties of good cuppa of tea, because I am still as much of a romantic as I was when I thought Paul McCartney would realize any minute that he was The One For Me...

Because I think that "holy matrimony...is an honorable estate"...

Because I have seen and sung a lot of weddings, and mourned for how the ceremonies sometimes fail...

Because of all this, I watched the Royal Wedding. It was beautiful, stately, and joyous.

Now, I know a lot of married folks (and have been one myself), and not one of us has had a wedding like this one. That's allright. What's not allright is that some people, though they love each other deeply, and though they show tremendous commitment to the relationship, aren't allowed to marry in royal or in any other fashion.

Love, long love, requires all you have in you. I believe that every couple - and by couple I mean two people - who have courage enough to pledge to live the rest of their lives for, and with, each other should be allowed to do so with the full blessings of church and state. My church, the Episcopal Church, is walking prayerfully and purposefully toward that goal, for which I give thanks to God. 

The most glorious music in the ceremony was Paul Mealor's exquisite setting of Ubi Caritas et Amor, and here it is, as sung during the wedding. The clip is in stereo. Be patient, and let it load all the way before you listen. It is well worth the wait.

 

Here is a link to the tape of the whole event without any of the distracting/annoying/sometimes inaccurate commentary, which you will not miss, as I am also linking to the official programme.

 

Had enough yet?

Got evangelism? Sometimes not...

 

Enough 2

When my mom grew weary of her two litle girls quarreling over whose slice of pie or bowl of ice cream was biggest, she instituted this practice: one of us did the dividing, and the other got the first pick. This instantly and almost magically evened out the size of the pies.

Wanting some-more-most is seated deep in the human psyche, as are good-better-best, for example, and new-newer-beta. They're all just variations on I-me-mine (in some traditions that's called original sin). Our capitalist economy depends on this. How will corporations get all their capital if we don't spend all of ours buying their stuff?

So? What's wrong with that? For the corporation, nothing. The system works. But for us? We for whom the gaping maw waits all wide and toothy?

Here's what Rob Bell says, in his book Love Wins:

There is nothing wrong with possessions; it's just that they have value to us only when we use them, engage them, and enjoy them. They're nouns that mean something only in conjunction with a verb. That's why wealth is so dangerous: if you're not careful, you can easily end up with a garage full of nouns.

"Garage full of nouns". Ha! I don't even have a garage! O most virtuous me!

But might I have a closet full of nouns? You bet. If I moved to a smaller place and put some of my things in storage, I'd have a storeroom full of nouns. Nouns plus one heart, because Jesus said "where your treasure is, there your heart will be also", and I have yet to see empirical proof to the contrary.

Letting go is difficult. We trust what we hold in our hands. We find it hard to even identify that which holds us.

 

( Here's George Harrison's haunting I Me Mine. Embedding was disabled. Perfect, yes?)

 

Today's lesson: autotuning

Some of you might be wondering exactly what autotuning is, and why some musicians seem adamantly opposed to its ubiquitous presence in the recording industry. Let me give an illustration.

Here is Mishka singing with her natural voice:

 

And here is Mishka, with autotuning.

 

Your questions about why singers who've really learned their craft tend to look upon it with disgust and sadness, ahould now, I think, have been answered.

Here endeth the lesson.

More Bell!

Here are the first and second portions of The Gods Aren't Angry, a talk by Rob Bell. You can continue on your own through the other eight portions, should you desire.

Some of his thoughts on propitiatory sacrifice and repentance remind me of the writings of both René Girard and James Allison. I had forgotten the huge impact their work had on me... because I am human and can "forget" even the most shattering things if they make me have to be too big and free and full of spirit. I am grateful for being reminded that, when I am asking myself, "just who do you think you are?" that the answer is "more than I thought".

 

 

Guide thou the song I shall sing of thee: set prayers

Sometimes, when folks find out I am a jazz singer, they think that means I make up everything I sing. Over the years, students have told me, in various ways, that they want to sing jazz so as to be relieved of having to learn the melody of a song. We place a high value on personal expression in this culture; we don't like being told what to say, and we tend to think that something spontaneous is more "real". Witness the popularity of so-called reality shows, and radio call-in programs on almost any topic. But there is a power in shape and limits.

I belong to what some people think of as a cold and formal church. As an Episcopalian, I take part in a liturgy that is scripted and choreographed. Some say it is impersonal, and I acknowledge that I have on occasion sat in some pretty chilly churches as prayers were read in monotones or sung so elegantly that they became concert pieces. Annie DIllard wrote:

 I often think of the set pieces of liturgy as certain words which people have successfully addressed to God without their getting killed. In the high churches they saunter through the liturgy like Mohawks along a strand of scaffolding who have long since forgotten their danger. If God were to blast such a service to bits, the congregation would be, I believe, genuinely shocked.                                                                                                                

"Come Holy Spirit," we pray, "but not too close. Thanks so much." 

And yet.

There is another side to the issue, and I have become reacquainted with it this week. The events unfolding in Japan while all the usual catastrophes continue their appointed rounds in the rest of the world (New Orleans is still suffering, Haitians are still starving, Qaddafi is still killing his people, and American schoolchildren still can't read very well) are so profoundly overwhelming that I don't know what to say. I can't say anything, I can't contain my grief, and I am all over the place like sheep without a Border Collie. I need form.

So I have been deeply grateful for the set prayers like the Lord's Prayer and the collects, the words that have been used for centuries. They hum in my memory like songs, and like songs, they help me groan and cry, and bring me back to trust and to the calm focus that births action.

Strengthen your servants, O God.

 

 

 

The beat goes on

Flash mob dancing at Beirut Airport - if this happened at any of the airports I have visited in the past few months, I would have been a much happier flyer.

International Women's Day

Voiceover by Judi Dench, as "M". Daniel Craig, as 007, James Bond.

The video, created by the photographer and film-maker Sam Taylor Wood, has been made for EQUALS, a partnership of leading charities brought together by Annie Lennox to celebrate the centenary of International Women's Day on Tuesday 8 March.

via www.telegraph.co.uk

 

Down with tyranny!

My friend Jonathan posted a link on his Facebook page to a good article about the singing of the national anthem at the Superbowl last Sunday. His comment on the link, melismatica diabolica has delighted me beyond measure, and I hereby adopt it as my new archvillain name. Melismatica Diabolica. But you may call me "Meli" for short.

Not that there will be any "short", because in my evil Meli persona I take fiendish pleasure in what Jerry Wexler called "oversouling". I sing every possible note on every single syllable, and the National Anthem, even though no more than one verse is ever sung, lasts into eternity, or next year's playoffs, whichever is longer... and beyond.

Personally, I don't think Christina Aguilera deserves all of the abuse that has been hurled at her since the game. Folks have even called her treasonous, for heaven's sake! There has been loud railing about two things: Christina dropped a lyric, and she embellished the melody. Let's take a look.

Ms. Aguilera did fumble a lyric in the second A section, repeating "what so proudly" (from the first A) instead of "o'er the ramparts", and carrying on with "at the twilight's last gleaming" instead of "were so gallantly streaming". Carrying on, when there is a problem, is what a pro does. Drop a line, keep going. Mess up a move, keep going. She is not the first singer to dry up on the star-spangled lyric, and not even the first to do it at a huge televised event. Macy Gray, Michael Bolton, and Steven Tyler come easily to mind as members of that club. Nor is she the first singer to mess with the melody and the feel. That box was opened by Jose Feliciano in the late 60s, but the template was set, I think, by Whitney Houston in 1991 (ten years ago, and here we are, still dedicating the anthem to our troops in the Middle East!). Whitney had an orchestra behind her, and wore a jogging outfit. She did a good job (in spite of the outfit). And she took some liberties with the melody, which opened a Pandora's box. It is now expected that every singer will try to inject more passion, more patriotic fervor, and more notes into what is, in my opinion, a not-very-good-song. So yes, Christina flowered and embroidered, but she is not the first, and alas, will not be the last. At least she stayed in the same key all the way, and, with the kind of delay a singer must wrestle at such an event, that is no small accomplishment. With no orchestra, by the way, to help (or to make things worse, depending).

I have sung the anthem many times, most notably at the new Comiskey Park in Chicago, and at the old Chicago Stadium for a couple of Bulls games. It's a V.I.P. invitation to over-sing. The teams are out on the field. The atmosphere is sizzling with electricity. Everyone is ready for the game. But first, you, the singer, step forward to center court or home plate or wherever, to "lead" the singing of our national anthem. Forget leading. Most folks in the stands do not sing along, because they can't. It's a difficult melody, covering a wide range (an octave and a half), so for most folks it is going to be too high, too low, or both. 

Back to what actually is sung: "Oh say...?", you as singer/leader ask (because the whole first verse is a question), and all around you folks are, for the most part, standing and holding their right hands over their hearts. They have to do that. It's a law: Part 301 of chapter 3 of Title 36 of United States Code. But - at this writing - no one is being arrested for not doing it. You sing on. By the time you get to somewhere around "so proudly we hailed" you are hearing your voice, which has been blasted through the sound system out into the stadium, and is finally bouncing off the back wall and returning to your ears. That voice is singing, "O say can". What you hear will never catch up to what you are doing; for the whole song, you will be singing contrary to what you are hearing.  Actually, it is not unlike singing at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, something I think I do very well precisely because of my stadium experience.  Send Anglican choirs to the Superbowl for some larnin', say I.

When you reach "the rockets red glare" you start to hear a rumble from the crowd. It sounds like they are really getting into your singing. That rumble increases as you forge on. Let me tell you, it feels good. Tens of thousands of people are cheering, and you can really hear them because you have paused for a big breath before "the land of the free". They love you! They are wild for you! They want you to sing more! They can't wait till you get to the high note and really show them what you've got!

Not really. They actually want you to finish singing so the game can begin. They are cheering because you have almost finished. They are cheering for the game. It's all about the game. So the temptation to unleash a flurry of brilliant vocal stylings is actually your naughty angel, whispering in your ear. Your good angel is somewhere racketing around the stadium on that 10-second delay. Will conscience kick in, or ego? Flip a coin.

I love my country, and have decided many times to stay here rather than go back to Europe. But I think our national anthem, as a song, is a stinker. The lyric is not about the nation, not even about the colonies, the land or the Constitution. It is about one particular battle in the War of 1812. An alarming number of us have never heard of the War of 1812, much less why it was fought. The original title was Defence of Fort McHenry. How many of us can find Fort McHenry on a map? The entire first verse is a question: "Can you see the flag in the daylight? It was there last night. Can you see it this morning?" The second verse asks the question again: "Is it there?" and goes on to say "yes, I think I can see it." We rarely hear that verse. The third verse says, "Yes, it's there, and the bad guys are toast." But no one ever sings that verse. Musically, "The Star-Spangled Banner" lacks the drive of "La Marseillaise", the gravitas of "God Save the Queen", and the sweetness of "O Canada". It should have been deposed a long time ago, like the tyrant it is, and the gorgeous and singable "America the Beautiful" elected instead.

A second cup, my dears?

Reader Ernest has reminded me of something I left out of yesterday's post about the proppa cuppa tea, something that is is yet another link in the chain that leads to a truly discouraging brew in most restaurants here in this coffee-centric culture. Remember that the water used to make your tea often runs through the coffee machine to be heated. Remember that black tea needs boiling water poured on it. Remember also that coffee machines heat water to below the boiling point, so the hottest that water is ever going to be is not hot enough, and  - what I failed to include - the too-small mug it's poured into is usually a heavy ceramic thing, and has not been warmed. Say bye-bye to a few more degrees of heat. I would have included this, but I was already lying on the floor, whimpering.

However, now that I am writing this postscript, I really should also introduce the microwave issue. When microwave ovens first came into use, it was thought they might be a danger to pregnant women. That seems to have been addressed, and the things are everywhere. I have friends who almost never use their stoves anymore. And I have friends who, on offering me tea, fill a mug with water, plonk in a teabag, and thrust it into the microwave to boil (or not boil, depending on what the thing is set for).

I have noticed that tea thus prepared does not taste the same as it does when steeped in water boiled in a stovetop or electric kettle. It's not quite the same color, either; the rich brown I expect becomes a little greyish. I thought for a while this was because microwaving does something to the tea. So I did an experiment, using several different microwaves (thank you to my tolerant and amused friends!). I heated the water only. Just the water in a clean cup. Here's what happens: put in a teabag, and get greyish-brown tea that does not taste the same, even when I use my beloved Yorkshire Gold as a control.

It is true that putting the tea on top of the water isn't really the done thing. Pouring the water onto the tea is what I do at home, so I have done that, too, with microwaved boiling H²O. It still brews up grey. It still tastes... funny. I am convinced that microwaving changes the water itself.

Do we find this acceptable? Ermmm, not really, no. We do not.

Of course, if Parliament had not enacted the Tea Act in 1773, things might be different here. One might be able to get good tea in an American restaurant. Instead, it's coffee everywhere. Coffee made its way to Europe and thence to the American colonies from the African and the Middle Eastern countries of Ethiopia, Egypt and Yemen, and is also a very admirable beverage. It had a big popularity surge during the American Revolution because of that Tea Act, and we've been hooked on it ever since... far longer than we've been mainlining oil from roughly the same part of the world.