Making A Joyful Noise

Last night was our first group singing experiment at the home of Lyla Haggard, one of our Brava members. There were five of us, and Lyla also sang and accompanied us on the piano. Imagine. A group of visual artists singing together.

We sang a long list of carols and contemporary Christmas songs, then just clowned around with random stuff spontaneously offered up by one and then another group member. When it came time to sing “Blue Christmas” we imitated Elvis, complete with backup. Someone did Santa’s big deep voice in “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.”

We learned:

1. that individually we aren’t as good as we like to think we are
2. that as a group we’re not much better, and
3. that we don’t care.

The choice of songs ran the gamut from touching to nostalgic to thoroughly silly. The more glasses of wine, the better we thought we sounded.

By the end of the evening we were reminded that it doesn’t matter what we sound like. We were reminded that it’s a joyful thing just to raise our collective voices in song, and touch a place inside that takes us back to our childhoods perhaps, and to times when we felt a secure sense of belonging.

For that I am joyful.

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