Spent a bit of time with some older folks tonight, a bunch of us get together and do that fairly regularly. It’s nice to do for all kinds of reasons. It’s great to hear a room full of people singing. Doesn’t matter how good any one voice is, it’s always a beautiful sound. Reminds me that this music is primarily a social music. Sure, there’s space to just sit and listen to something special now and again, and I’m just as capable of pulling out a party piece as the next person. Okay, maybe more. But the experience doesn’t shine as much for the listener when it’s nothing but that the whole time. And the players know that, too. They’ll feel that it’s not really working, even if they don’t know why. No, it’s a music that we all do together. Sadly the business of music has pushed all that aside in favour of valuing something else. Means we’ve lost something. I used to think it was just me. But the old players would talk about how often they’d play, and the place those various sessions had in the community. The music was an integral part of people’s social life, and the players were valued for their contribution. Now that whole experience is lost to most of us. And apparently we don’t even know we had it.
But you will hear me say this gently. We are missing something.
It is a social music.