WARNING: This blog is highly flowery and somewhat poetic. I can’t help it; sometimes I just write this way!
I live for harmonies. I’m like a school girl when I hear a smooth, dissonant chord in ensemble, duet, or trio; I get goose bumps, my eyes well up, and my heart skips a beat. It’s one of those things that almost breaks your heart a little because it’s just THAT pretty. When driving down the road listening to my pick of the day, I will often rewind one track over and over again just to hear one particular chord and how it’s layered around the melody. When I’m playing the piano, I will play a chord and make people harmonize with it just to get that resonant sound that only comes with voice meets piano notes. I’m a sucker for it, a music enthusiast, and a talent snob, always listening to the blend of melodies and harmonies around me.
I think I truly found this love for harmony when I sang for an Acapella group at Young Harris and then the Jazz Ensemble at UGA. We did mostly Acapella (music without instruments) music, so we relied solely on our voices and how the blend orchestrated the sounds produced. Sometimes the men would soften, so the ladies could showcase their melodies, and sometimes the women would sing sweetly to highlight the male tones. If we weren’t blending correctly or one part stuck out sorely over the rest, my director would make us stand in a circle and sing with our eyes closed. We couldn’t look at her for direction, and had to rely completely on our ears to match pitch with one another. That was always my favorite part of rehearsal. The moment we closed off our senses to the rest of the world and focused on one, singular part, the melody.
After all my years of studying music, it wasn’t until I was in Phang Nga Thailand that I truly realized why I had such a connection with harmony. We were teaching some missionary kids about choral and jazz music and the importance of blend. My friend Alicia was telling them about something her old choral director always taught during rehearsal. He would always tell her choir that the harmony exist to make the melody sound better. The melody is the carrying point of the song, and the harmonies sit on top or under the central root of the song, the melodic line. When she said this, I pushed my bottom lip up, raised my eyebrows, and nodded. That totally makes sense.
As the lesson went on I chewed on that point and came to a consensus. Harmony is what I was created to be. I was created to be harmony to our ultimate melody, Our Creator, in essence ‘make him sound better,’ or in our terms, ‘glorify Him.’ Wow. Truth punched in the diaphragm. In essence we exist to make the Ultimate Melody sound better, which is our Lord. Ok, I can do that. I crave to do that. Just like when I hear that one crunchy chord that sends shivers up my spine, there is a vibration in the spiritual realm when we harmonize with the Ultimate Melody, and I get a little buzz off of that as well.
I get that. Living in the musical fairyland that is my head, I can imagine that I am singing along to be God’s harmony and live to amplify Him. But the hard part, the heartbreak if you will, is that I want to live out that harmonic relationship with someone here on earth. Enter sucking ‘S’ sound through your clenched teeth and ‘Ouuu’ sounds from the masses at that statement. All of the I-N-D-E-P-E-N-D-E-N-T woman phrases are flooding through my mind as I think about that last sentence. You don’t want to sound needy. You don’t want men to know that you can’t do it on your own, because believe me you can. I mean, you’re available, but you don’t want to sound too available. And yes, believe me, I do not want to sound needy, or lame, whatever you want to call it, but I might sound that way to you, and frankly I don’t care. The truth is, I’m ready to be the harmony in a man’s life. I’m ready to be in the sole relationship put on earth that mirrors our relationship with the Lord, the Ultimate Pursuer, the Ultimate Melody. I’m in a waiting place for that special someone, wanting to be needed by the mystery man, desiring to follow after a strong leader and visionary, and hoping for someone to harmonize with. Hoping for someone who I can make sound better…not in the snobby, I enhance your very existence kind of way, but in the, ‘let me bring out the best in you’ way.
And that’s kind of hard. I’m still sitting, singing my harmonies by myself, and I sound like the awkward person that always sings off pitch but thinks she’s legit. I am not pitying myself, or asking for the ever-so-popular ‘in God’s perfect timing’ phrase (although I do believe His timing is everything), I’m just being mature and real with what I want and what I think I’m ready for. That’s it. Nothing too earth shattering, just my heart. In it’s truest, most naked form—honest.
No comments:
Post a Comment