Last weekend, my family had lots of company over (about six families), and, as we like to do with guests, we all gathered in the den and spent some time singing the Psalms together (we sing acapella from the Scottish Metrical Psalter of 1650).
Now my family is fairly musical, and my father, brother and I, all have good voices, but I am unable to sing the "other parts." I can sing the regular tune, and that's it. On a normal day, I don't care. I'm quite happy to sing the soprano part with everyone else. And I love it.
But.
When company comes over, and they're very musical, then I get a little jealous of them. I want to sing the alto (or even the men's parts) too! Everyone starts off on their harmony, and I feel left out, like someone who is trying to play a song in a jam session but doesn't know the chords. It's not that the singers are rude (they are the complete opposite of that, and I love them to pieces!!) but they're just doing their own thing, and I want to do it too, but I don't know how!!
So normally I wallow in self-misery, but over this weekend, I realized something.
Someone needs to carry the regular tune. Someone has to belt it out with as much vigor and care as these amazing singers do to their harmonies.
Why? Because without the regular tune, the harmonies just don't sound right. It's called four-part harmony for a reason. And who's going to do the fourth part?
The people who are just learning the tune?
The people who are more self-conscious and don't sing very loudly?
The people who just can't sing very well?
The children?
Nope.
Me.
(Also, this is the singing of God's Word. The point of singing it is not to sound beautiful, but rather to give praise to Him. I really should not be sitting there pouting about the melody, but should rather be focusing on the words and the great things they speak of.)
So that was just something I thought I would share. I've been thinking about that a lot - doing things that you think is boring or worthless, but is really important when you get right down to it. Like doing the dishes or vacuuming.
That's a really good point!
ReplyDeleteAnd I loved reading this post because I LOVE SINGING - especially harmonies - although if there's one part I CAN'T do, it's the soprano xD I can push my voice that high? usually? but it does not sound good. But altos tend to be fairly "invisible", I feel, so sometimes I feel a bit jealous? which is of course not good and I need to bless the Lord with the voice He blessed me with.
(I know a few (Reformed Presbyterian?) families who sing only Psalms and acapella, and we sing acapella too. And I love it when we can get together with other musical families and sing praise (because normally we don't have enough strong singers to carry harmonies))
Wow, this comment got a lot longer (and ramblier!) than I expected. :D
I just can't do the harmonies!! (I can't read music, either, so I'm just doing it all by ear...) And we are Psalmody alone (acapella) people. :) We were singing with some Presbyterian Reformed and some Free Church of Scotland (Continuing) folks, in a beautiful time of Christian fellowship!
DeleteI know there are Psalmody-only folkses Down Under as well, and it's so cool that you know some of them!!