Back before the pandemic, a married couple directed music at our church and did a fantastic job of it. I've been singing in choirs since I was a wee small girl, and they are my favorite directors ever. There are a lot of tensions for a church music director to straddle: the music has to be more worship than performance, but if you don't pay sufficient attention to the details you can distract from the worship. You want to welcome new musicians while also keeping a reasonable standard for musical skill. You need to let people know when they have to fix something while also remembering that human error is an inevitable part of live music. You have to keep the pastor and the congregation and the choir happy even when they want different things. It's a lot, and this couple did a terrific job.
In 2021 they announced that they were resigning from their paid positions. They agreed to stay on in a volunteer role, but the Masses were divided among a team of volunteer directors and they were only in charge of one liturgy each weekend. It conflicts with my standing Sunday Zoom call with my college roommates, so I hadn't sung with them in-- gosh, probably two years.
She texted me to ask if I was available for the Triduum services, and I said I'd love to come. We rehearsed last night. And you guys, it was the best.
I stopped playing flute for Mass in 2020 and I never went back to it. Do you remember those articles about viral particle spread via wind instruments? I'm remembering a particular story that put the flute right behind the vuvuzela in its capacity to serve as a COVID dispersion machine. When we were permitted to have musicians at Mass again, they couldn't be wind instruments; there was too much concern about virus transmission back in the pre-vaccination era. I am still happy that I learned to play the bass during that time, so I'm not complaining. But I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed playing the flute for Mass.
Last night we were paging through the music together and I was jotting down notes in my binder about which parts to play where. At one point the director said, "Jamie, can you play the tenor part for the refrain? And can you pad on the verses?" In a calm voice I said, "Sure," and penciled "R-tenor, V-pad" on the page. But inwardly I said this instead:
Padding on the verses means I'll add in something pretty and unobtrusive -- maybe a little harmony under the vocalist's line, maybe a little echo of the melody, maybe just the roots of the chords if I'm putting more emphasis on unobtrusive than pretty. Padding is where the structure of planning and rehearsal gives way to the spontaneity of improvisation.
For two years before the pandemic I played the flute for Mass more often than not. So in some ways this feels entirely normal; I have plenty of pages of music marked "R-tenor, V-pad." But at the same time it feels like a homecoming. At the beginning of the pandemic when all the churches shut down I felt like I was walking around with a limb missing. I wrote about the sadness and the weirdness in that first pandemic summer. Even after we had access to the sacraments again, we didn't really have access to the church community. Though I've been involved in simple ensembles pretty consistently, I've really missed that larger community of musicians.
So tonight I am feeling lucky and grateful about this thing I get to be part of tomorrow and the day after and the day after that: a trusted director, a big and joyful ensemble, and a shared commitment to doing something beautiful and evanescent, in the service of something beautiful and eternal.
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