SING WITH ME

I remember well what the first song was that I learned to play without music.  It was like building a house from a sketch instead of from a blueprint: I saw only the skeleton of the chords, marked in above the lyrics.  I felt a raw power in the ability to fill in the gaps, to find the melody myself from memory and feed it into the piano without notes to direct me.  I relied on the chords that had been specified, and sang the words myself to shape the contours of what was encoded on the page.  The precision of my fingers became secondary; the song became most important.  Lacking the instructions of another musician, every phrase hinted at how the music should sound.  But at first I didn’t know that.

I chose this song because it was uncomplicated, and because I liked it.  The name was “How great is our God.”  My piano teacher, because I’d asked her to, explained a simple way of matching the chords with the melody.  She said there wasn’t much that she could teach me about playing songs this way, which frustrated me.  There seemed to be so much to learn.  There was, but although my teacher didn’t come right out and say it, she just couldn’t give me that kind of knowledge.  Only experience can teach the intuition necessary to extrapolate a song from a vague outline.  I grumbled inwardly and began experimenting in the time I should have been devoting to Mozart.

Most of what was on the paper were the words.  A fully notated version of the song might have sandwiched lyrics between thick armies of notes, but in this brave new world of music, the words stared at me without competition.  They told me how to play.

Begin gently, they said.  Rise in the second phrase.  Follow the peaks at every elongated word, riding the gentle swells of the verse; lean into this idea.  Grow steadily as you approach the bold assertion of the chorus.

It changed every time I played it.  Some times I gave more importance to this word, sometimes to that one.  But always I played the most at “sing with me.”  It was a call to action.  The song itself was begging anyone near to join in, and I emphasized this plea every time.  It seemed necessary that I did.

And so this song has since seemed elemental to me: it marked a new phase in my years as a musician.  In more than that it is elemental.  It speaks of splendor; it speaks of majesty.  It speaks of greatness.  It speaks of a God who is vast and powerful, and it asks for more voices.  “Sing with me,” every chorus urges.  Even when I hear the song and am not at the piano, those words are giving directions from a page without clearly marked measures and crescendos.  This is what must be emphasized.  Tell everyone to sing.

            One thing God has spoken, two things have I heard:

            That you, O God, are strong,

            and that you, O Lord, are loving.

Sing with me.