Saturday, March 25, 2017
"He who sings prays twice"
I don't think it's known for sure who said that (apparently not Augustine after all) but certainly singing is good for you physically and psychologically, whether it is spiritually or not ... TIME magazine: Singing Changes Your Brain
The thing I miss most about not going to church anymore is the singing. I love to sing and have always sung to my pets :) and lately I've been learning and singing Moody Blues (and Justin Hayward) songs. When I was in high school I saw them in concert and also again when I was married, but I never really knew a lot about them. Recently, though, I've been reading up on the history of the band and posting the songs I especially like on my blog. What's fun is learning the words, searching for the best video version, and then singing along with it or singing to the cats. They are getting heartily tired of Forever Autumn :) Below are a few of their songs that I like the best. Do you guys sing too?
- Forever Autumn ...
- Never Comes the Day ...
- Lovely to See You ...
- Tuesday Afternoon ...
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Thank you, Crystal. Those are lovely, especially "Forever Autumn". I have some Moody Blues cassette tapes somewhere in a box. I should download them from YouTube onto my MP3 player, the cassette tapes don't hold up so well over time. Yes, I sing around the house. And anywhere else I get the chance. My cats have the *eye-roll* down pretty good. This one has been going through my head all day, because of the feast day. I love Sting's version: here
ReplyDeleteI sing in the church choir.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately it is a four part choir and I learn by ear since I can't read music very well. So I have to sing quietly in case I am singing the wrong part.
But I have a strong voice and really like to sing out strong. One parish with very good acoustics used to have an a cappela Mass during the summer, I loved to go there and really sing out.
I have a large liturgical music collection between 500-1000 CDs roughly equally divided between Latin chant, Eastern Chant, Anglican Chant and contemporary.
I can't go to church tomorrow because of a health problem
But I will listen to With Heart and Voice a two hour program of choral music from 8 to 10, then watch the ND live Mass at 10 on Catholic TV internet site, probably while walking on my treadmill downstairs (it has a computer with a good sound system)
I will be interested in everybody's opinion and particularly what you like in terms of church music, I known a lot of sites that I could do posts on.
I was thinking of during a video of a wonderful Byzantine Catholic Easter Sunrise Service. It long but its in sections so you can stop and take a break. Very interesting church and the ways that do things.
I listen to Classic music all the time on the internet. I used to have a lot of records of secular music but I gave that up as the liturgical music developed.
Good idea. Hope there are a lot of music lovers among us. It would add a lot to the character of this site.
Thanks, Katherine - I've never heard that one before. It's beautiful. My favorite Sting song is this one, which I used to sing to my elderly cats when they were sickly at the end. Makes me cry ... "but I swear, in the days still left, we will walk in fields of gold" https://youtu.be/GLyxzNpUaNc
ReplyDeleteOh I do like the Moody Blues and Tuesday Afternoon. Liked the whole Album it was on. I still have it but I haven't used my record player in a long time.
ReplyDeleteJack, I hope you feel better soon. Yes, the Byzantine liturgical nusic is beautiful, also the Ukrainian and Russian.
ReplyDeleteCrystal, my sister (who is talented at media stuff) put a video on Facebook a couple of years ago of some of the children in our family running through a field. The audio track was Sting's "Fields of Gold". That one makes me cry, too.
Jack, I hope you feel better soon. It's been so long since I've been to church that I don't recall the names of the songs we sang, me not being raised in the church. But there are religious songs I like ... For the Beauty of the Earth ... Healing Light: A Celtic Prayer ... Salve Regina (this last one is unusual :)
ReplyDeleteHeaven by the Talking Heads.
ReplyDeleteOne more and then I'll stop ... the Masters of Chant :)
ReplyDeleteThis one is great. I love Scarborough fair and chant. It is going to be background music for me today
DeleteThanks, Crystal, for reintroducing me to the Moody Blues. (Yeah,"Forever Autumn" sticks to the brain.) It's always good to listen along with a fan of a group.
ReplyDeleteIn response to your question about us guys singing, I have to say my mother was a singer whose talent failed to measure up to her enthusiasm, and this penny whistle didn't fall far from the flute. Nevertheless, when Catholic singing was encouraged by Vat II, I was delegated (with others) to lead the singing from the altar and, later when guitar and sometimes banjo were added, from the first pew. The architect of that disaster later became a cardinal, but, believe me, he never would have gotten out of Kansas City if the apostolic delegate had heard us. As I always say, if you don't like my singing, sing louder and drown me out.
V2 was good for so many reasons. That article I linked to stated that the quality of the singing didn't really matter, but I bet you are being too modest :)
DeleteBanjo? Trying to imagine what "Salve Regina" would sound like on a banjo.
DeleteDuring lent, I play sacred music from the great classical composers, and always play the sacred works of Poulenc. I don't have his "Dialogues of the Carmelites" yet. His "Liberté" is appropriate, written in France during the time of the occupation. Now is as close as I've ever felt to living under those circumstances. This lent is really lent on steroids.
ReplyDeleteThaks, Stanley - I hadn't heard of Poulenc before. It seems there's a lot of his work on YouTube.
DeleteI have seen no mentions of Spotify here, the streaming music service that starts at just $9.99 a month. There are at least three complete recordings of Dialogues des Carmelites, one in English. (I think there are others, but one of the drawbacks of Spotify is that it is so badly indexed that it sometimes takes creative searches to find things you know must be there.)
DeleteDecades ago I saw an English-language version of Dialogues at the Metropolitan Opera. It is one of the most memorable opera performances that I have ever attended in that it was a very effective (and affecting) drama. I don't know how careful we need to be about spoilers for opera plots, so I will just say that I was actually quite shaken by the last act.
I can only speak for myself, but it's would be hard for me to justify paying for streaming music when so much of it is free via YouTube and the like ... even Dialogues des Carmelites lives there is some forms :)
DeleteI might buy a digital song at Amazon, though, if I loved it and couldn't find it elsewhere.
I don't sing since my old lady voice cracked, and I rarely listen to music. But I did have the Pogues on for a couple hours on St. Patrick's Day while I made my soda bread, drank my LaBatt's nonalcoholic brew, and thought of all the relatives I've had to spring out of the drunk tank on March 18.
ReplyDeleteI do like Irish music too. There's an Irish guy I've been listening to lately - Hozier - have you heard his stuff? He won a lot of acclaim with his song "Take Me to Church' which won the Grammy's song of the year.
ReplyDeleteNo. I was raised on Irish music, and I like the Pogues because they mock it with that punk undertow. Raber is high on The Accidentals, an indie band here. They sound like whiny teenagers, but the video has some nice shots of Michigan: https://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=KB_lytx-i3I
ReplyDelete