I've been doing a lot of reading on music in general lately. The Story of Christian Music by Andrew Wilson-Dickson, Music in Egypt by Scott Marcus, articles on the art of tarab. Some things I read long ago float back to mind, and I need to hunt down the sources.
As a dancer, I move through, around, inside music. As an amateur songwriter and avid singer, I express myself through music. My children study music, and my 11 month old daughter starts singing scales whenever her brother brings out his trumpet. She used to follow along, but now she sings the next note for him. If I want the day to go well as we homeschool, I put music practice at the beginning of the day. The day is started with joy and a sense of accomplishment and confidence for my son.
Music, in our family, is more than background noise. It is an expression of joy and community. It is the soothing sound that calms us and lulls the baby to sleep. It is celebration and sadness, filling of empty hours and pacing the maddening rush. It is something shared. Sometimes I crave silence, but even that, to me, is part of the music of this life. I value the 'rests' and quiet moments as I value the crescendos.
I know this is not the typical experience for every family or every person. Yet, I believe that music has the power to help everyone shape our lives. Plato went so far as to suggest certain types of music should be outlawed, banned as inciting the public to community-destroying fervor, and recommending other forms as contributing to the public good.
I listened to a recording of a call to prayer in Scott Marcus's book, Music in Egypt this morning. It made me think of how we structure our own lives here, in our house. We have no call to prayer. Instead, we have a spoken call to dinner, and everyone fills their own bellies in time worn tradition, making sure no one gets more than their 'fair share' (whether it be something desirable or not!) Is it possible to shift this selfish, carnal, and purely functional part of our day into something that can show our appreciation and joy for the life a shared meal can give?
Devotional time is difficult to structure in our home. I have tried many different formats to keep us on schedule and to keep us aware of our purpose as Christians. I miss hearing mass sung in the Russian Orthodox church of the village we used to live in. I miss the planned liturgy of my grandmother's church, where we knew each week what scripture and songs we would use based on the liturgical calendar. Music already shapes our lives, why have we, as a family, not used it more conscientiously to shape our attitudes?
This is not a new concept for me. I recommend to pregnant women in my prenatal classes that they choose one CD of restful music and practice relaxation techniques to that particular CD. When they go into labor, simply putting that familiar music on reminds their bodies to relax, as they have trained it to do. Yet today, I realize that I need to be more conscious of how my own musical habits are structuring my own life. My head is buzzing with music theory, social aspects of music, benefits and stigmas and purpose. I hope to get some of this down in the coming days.
I started this reading project in order to be more present in my dance, and to share with other dancers the importance of understanding our music. What a blessing to be stirred to greater understanding and a greater conscious expression of our lives through something so transient and ephemeral as dance. It puts me in awe of the journey we travel in this life.
