Try this one stupid idea
On democracy, and singing with others
I love to sing, and I am singing most of the time. Ween will tell you that there is not a single song I can hear without idly turning it into a refrain about “tiny dogs” who “look like logs”. She probably thinks humans are mostly melodic communicators.
One of my favourite things to do in the evenings is to sit in the dark, with my blue light blocker aviators on, singing along to music in harmony while playing bird-themed board games on my iPad.
Which is to say, I love to sing alone, but I love even more to sing with others.
When I harvest the top memories of my life, many of them involve singing with my dear friend Elita, whose soprano voice soars above my throaty alto, and who can deliver me in this way to other, parallel but not otherwise accessible, planes of existing. (The planes are like our planes but the magic is more obvious, glistening on the surface instead of hidden deep in caves somewhere.)
My prompt for this topic, amazingly, was not singing or Elita or Patrick Freyne’s essay on singing, which I quote below. It was Robert Putnam’s description of bowling clubs (or any similar group thing done for fun) as the real stuff of democracy.1
“And in the doing of the bowling, in a team, you’re hanging out with folks and sometimes you’re talking about the latest TV show, or occasionally you might talk about the garbage pickup in town.
And that’s democracy.
Doing democracy doesn’t just mean — of course it means voting or it means organizing. I’m a political scientist, so I’m not opposed to that. I’m just saying, Don’t think the way to save democracy is just to set out to save democracy.”
I like to bowl but I do not aspire to be in a club about it. For me, the equivalent is singing with others.
Ideally that’s in a choir or band or singing group that assembles regularly and has a break in the middle for biscuits. But, if you’re like me, and the intensity of that collective experience - so beautiful! so transcendent! so much Slice of Heaven by Dave Dobbyn! - is too much for your system at the moment, there is also casual, home-based singing. (You can even get biscuits for the home.)
Or, in Patrick Freyne’s case, some kind of annual folk singing camp for grown ups that sounds like it happens on that other plane I mentioned:
“Every winter my wife and I go to a windswept coastal town in Northumberland to sing folk songs, guided by a famous English folk family. We’ve been doing this for eight years.
When we get there we drink real ale and eat well and learn how to sing harmonies on top of old songs about shipwrecks and selkies and people being pressganged to fight in foreign wars.
We are, it’s true, revelling in ancient misery while eating pies, but the music has a huge effect on me.
When I am singing in a large group, I can hear frail voices getting stronger and strong voices getting gentler and, slowly, I feel the edges of everyone disappearing until we have blended into one entity.
It’s terrifying and it’s beautiful. I simultaneously feel very present and as though I might disappear.
And when that happens I feel tears in my eyes, and a crack in my voice reminds me of my own individuality for a moment.
It’s not just that my voice blends with the others but it feels like my self does too. And I start to cry.”
In my own life, since I can’t do choirs at the moment, I must sometimes cajole loved ones into singing parties, usually Christmas carol parties at the end of each year. It is a wonderful thing to watch the same thing happen, even there, when many people feel like they gave up forced singing in childhood and really only came for the food, Katie.
Even there, you see what the singing does, and it’s just like Freyne describes, from his own version half a world away.
Encouraged to be raucous and joyful, the leaders lead and the reticent join in, and soon cheeks are flushed and people are laughing and we’re all countenancing our shared experience as humans in this funny ol’ world.
I agree so much with Robert Putnam’s view, that the work of tending to our society and to democracy itself lies not just in the direct political work we must do, but also this work of shared social worlds, of community wrought by fun, and collective, experiences. The ordinary stuff that keeps our human connections broad and moves the world forward.
How lucky we are that so much of what enriches our democracy also enriches us.
🎶 DAH DAH DAH do do 🎶 indeed.
May you find your way to singing (or bowling) with others, regularly.
May someone, anyone, tell me where I can find a harmonic folk singing camp for grownups in the greater Christchurch area.
May we know that in caring for our broader communities and social worlds, we are also caring for capital S Society, and for democracy.
Until next time,
Katie
Thanks for being part of The Living Library. 😌
If you are interested to hear some of my singing, you may like:
If you’re interested to work with me 1:1 as a highly sensitive or gifted person who likes the cut of my gib, and seeks to resource the world in some way, you can:
This gift link interview is an excellent bonus read! It talks about loneliness and Putnam’s humility as a researcher and advisor to government!
So true! We hosted one of those carol nights in our new neighborhood, led by Katie, and everyone loved it and asks about the next one. It started off quiet and awkward and soon became all vim and gusto. Then everyone started mixing and talking and eating cherries.
I miss your Christmas carol parties!