Blue Ridge
Vocal Connection
I’m having senior moments.
Whenever people say to me, “You don’t act your age,” I quip back, “I don’t know how to act my age; I’ve never been my age before.” Yesterday morning, I wrenched my back while gardening, another reminder that I have more proverbial miles in the rear-view mirror than out the front windshield. At my age, bending over can produce days of pain.
I think of this now in context of my new membership in a vocal choir, something that in my 70 years occupying space on this planet, has not been part of my life experience; I’ve never sung cooperatively, with a group, before… or at least not since kindergarten. John F. Kennedy said about his decision to launch the lunar program, “We choose to go to the moon in this decade… not because it is easy but because it is hard.” Singing in public is a moon shot for me.
While I’m finding the effort to be extreme, so too am I finding the benefits.
Years ago, I first heard the term, “Senior Moments,” defined to be those instances of absentmindedness often associated with aging. But it’s really unfair. Younger people have similar moments of forgetfulness – when a teenager misplaces his car keys, nobody says that’s a “junior moment.” Neuroscientists largely agree that our brains don’t fully develop until at least the mid-20s. Perhaps it’s all downhill (along with the rest of our bodies) from there.
But we can also exercise our brains and hopefully stay sharp longer. (“Sharp” here meaning in the traditional cognitive sense, but not a semitone higher than regular notes.) It seems to me that of all the human equipment that goes into making music – for example the diaphragm, lungs, esophagus, vocal chords, tongue, lips, and ears – perhaps the brain is the most important. Two hours of rehearsal really exercises my brain!
Case in point…
At last night’s rehearsal, we worked on a song called O Sifuni Mungu, which stressed me to the max. It of course has the usual assortment of indecipherable fermatas, marcatos, tenutos, tremolos, staccatos, and even probably a few pistachios and gorgonzolas. But if that wasn’t bad enough, it also has multiple repeats and codas, jumping around on the page inexplicably like popcorn shells in a greased skillet.
“Where are we now?” I kept asking my mentor, Joe, to which he’d respond in his typical, supportive, avuncular way, “Right here,” while pointing two pages away from where I was at that moment.
Worst of all, this particular song has the nasty characteristic of not being in English. By contrast, Bridge Over Troubled Waters, another song in our repertoire, is intensely difficult to sing, but at least it has the good manners of being in English. O Sifuni Mungu has a damn pronunciation guide! It’s not enough to have to stay on key and figure out where we are at any given time, but now I need to memorize how to pronounce “Na mfalme wetu.” Etc.
So I stumble through it, hoping not to embarrass myself or diminish the choir’s overall sound quality. But at least I know I’m exercising my brain, which may give me at least a few more quality years. There are more than a few gray hairs in the group overall, so perhaps others are finding similar benefits and are even there for the same reasons.
Additionally, science tells us that people who form close personal bonds live longer and happier. It occurred to me that now after several weeks, I still don’t know most of my choir-mates by name. So I’ve offered, and Thomas the Conductor has announced, that I’ll soon be hosting a pot-luck get-together at my house, so we can strengthen our bonds of acquaintance. While we’re making aspirationally beautiful music together, it makes sense to me for each of us to know each other better.
So my life in general and musical life in particular move onward into elderhood, dutifully exercised and with an aching back.
Stay tuned.