I want to tell you about this really special moment that happened when I was on stage, pretty early into my being-on-stage career 😉
I was in a vocal jazz emsemble when I was a teenager. There were about 5 or 6 of us, and we sang Great American Songbook tunes in close harmony.
For one of our performances, the small group of us stood with our director at the center of the stage in a tight cirlce, singing I don’t even know what song, and we were So! In! Tune! and so linked up to one another musically, that it was as though the air itself started sparkling.
Without separating from the musical moment at all, with all of my musical companions and our director still totally hooked in to one another, I imagine my ears perking up like a little puppy’s, head cocked a little to the side. I remember feeling: ohhh, something amazing is happening here.
That moment stood out so clearly to me during the show, so I was delighted to hear from our choir director afterwards that he was so amazed: we had created an overtone. What?! omg, so exciting!
Overtones are maybe a complicated musical phenomenon to explain. But basically it means that we were singing the notes so acurately that our sound waves were bouncing off one another in a way that created Other Notes (!!) that weren’t actually coming out of our own mouths.
I experienced this as my head bathing in sparkling air, as a moment of timelessness, as pure m-a-g-i-c.
I share this not only because it’s a treasured musical memory that happened at a formative time in my life, but also because it illustrates why I’m still performing to this day.
There are things I get from being on stage that I can’t get anywhere else.
That’s why I keep going back.
Music is ephemeral, but that doesn’t meant that the things it creates for us don’t have a deep and lasting impact.
I’m just so grateful for these magical, deeply nourishing experiences.
xx
-s
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