Well, I wrote already last month about music and the huge role that it plays in my life. If it's possible though, since then I think I've come to be even more inundated with music.
You know how you can have a song stuck in your head for days on end? Right now I've got a whole list of tunes I can play mentally. I can select from Carmen, from Andrea Bocelli, from three or so psalm settings, as well as various Mass parts and hymns. I'm humming or singing under my breath constantly the last couple weeks.
I wake up in the morning, and about the first fifteen minutes of tangible consciousness is Lauds, which has the Invitatory, which is sung, an opening hymn, and the Benedictus, which is also sung.
Mass figures into every day save Wednesday, when it occurs while I'm at Concordia. Mass at the seminary includes at least three hymns and four or five Mass parts, if not more of both, and occasionally sung prayers.
About three days a week I make it to chapel at Concordia. There are always at least two musical pieces, if not more.
Going to and from Concordia, the CD player is usually on. This is where Andrea Bocelli or something else, typically classical, would occur, since Pablo oftens makes use of the CD player to indulge our shared musical tastes.
I say the Office of Readings and Daytime Prayer on my own, and I never feel completely satisfied if I omit the hymn at the beginning. Today I was so enamored of the psalm setting we did at Compline last night that I set all the psalms to it.
Every evening we say Vespers together. This has, again, an opening hymn, as well as the Magnificat, which we sing. Tonight we get the full musical version, "Cathedral Vespers". And right before bedtime we have Compline, which has at least an opening hymn sung.
The communal life of the Church is full of music. Though the liturgy does not require it, it is a rare liturgy that lacks it, and it is a poorer liturgy, in my opinion. If words are the expression of our thoughts, then I think that music is the expression of our emotions.
And yet, for all that I am musically addicted and revolving... I absolutely hate iPods. Well, it's not that I think they are intrinsically bad. An iPod is like almost any tool: in and of itself there is nothing bad about it, and used well it can be a great boon to have.
However, I do not think most people use it well. It has become an antisocial agent, encouraging people not to communicate, but to withdraw from the world. It encourages obliviousness to the needs and presence of the community around us, and is really used in a profoundly selfish way. Equally bad, I don't think I've ever seen any evidence that iPods do anything to encourage people to sing or make music of their own. It certainly stifles the sharing of music, since they are scarce to be seen without the presence of earbuds. Music is like speech--it is meant to be audible, it is inherently communal. Music cordoned off into just one person's isolated ears is next to an abomination.
Anyway, that's my rant about it...
It's really funny, though, how this insane urge to hum and sing has been constantly recurring this weekend, which is supposed to be a silent retreat. Actually, I don't think I've had a less silent retreat yet... besides the musical instinct, I've had music practice which also entails all sorts of unnecessary conversation, and I'm engaged right now in outside communication, besides which I tend to read aloud... and read I have. That being said, this has been one of the most productive recollections I've experienced spiritually.
In a way, that's a microcosm of the seminary year thus far: less strictly adherent to the rules, but a lot more spiritually fruitful.
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2 comments:
Trust you, Michael, to make a social issue out of iPods...
One with which I'll have to agree, to an extent. But I think you miss the fact that earphones can be shared. While others might prefer to retreat to corners while listening to music by themselves, there are some who choose to share the other earphone with another. The pleasure of listening is reduced, yes, but it can open up lines of communication - even as both people listen quietly, because it can be indicative that they share musical tastes.
But I think that's more of the exception than the rule, and occurs only in certain situations.
Ah, but sharing earphones, as near as I've observed, almost never happens when there's only two people present--in which case I'll have to admit not so despicable. No, I've only ever seen earphone sharing between two people in a larger group. Which means that, instead of talking, if there are three or four people, then the group just sits there glumly and everyone waits their turn to tune into the music with the iPod owner, and conversation either falters, or the music-listeners are off in their own little world...
Of course, I should point out again that it's not the iPod itself that is bad, but the societal behaviour that seems to come attached to it at the hip.
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