Thursday, December 04, 2008

Missing . . .

*Sorry, no pictures yet. They are still on my camera. I'll try to get around to that tonight.*

I have been rather reflective lately. Perhaps it is all this thankfulness I have been practicing on my blog and (hopefully) in my life. I have noticed that something that has been a big part of my life, from a very young age, is missing. What is it you may ask? Music!

I have always been a part of performing, sharing, or creating some sort of music. I grew up singing in church and joined band and choir as early as possible. I continued on with competitions, lessons, choir, solos, band, etc, in high school and became extremely involved with everything in college. Even after college I was involved in music in church, in teaching lessons, and just through being connected at the college. Upon moving to Ohio, I thought I'd try my hand, or my voice as the case may be, at singing with the May Festival Choir, which I did for a "semester". After I stopped doing that because of the huge time commitment and the building of our home, I started teaching voice lessons and continued to do so until Abigail was born.

Since her birth, however, she has been my only audience. She puts up with me singing all sorts of nonsense around the house (thankfully I control myself and only do this around Andrew and Abigail - the rest of you are spared my goofiness). I was listening to some choral music the other day and I realized how much I miss singing it! Right now, however, I cannot imagine adding one more thing to my busy schedule. Family is my priority right now but I do miss having that outlet in my life. I will be content with my once or twice-a-year appearance at various churches until I find time to add something else.

I suppose this would also be an appropriate post to admit something else. I am a music snob. There I said it. I appreciate people's efforts to make music. It's when they think the effort of singing a 3-part pop song takes as much time/effort/talent/practice as performing say, Claussen's Magnificat (for example) I shutter! I enjoy a variety of music! I just expect live music to be performed well and not over-sung or a classical piece butchered by a pop style (again, I'm not against pop music. It just needs to be performed in the appropriate arenas).

Ok, enough ranting. I'm not sure that even will make sense to anyone but me!

The conclusion of this post is that I miss singing and music (listening and singing in my car doesn't really cut it).

Sorry that this post isn't very exciting. I will do my best to get some lovely, fun, and cute pictures posted of Abigail tomorrow.

4 comments:

Laura said...

I desperately miss playing my violin. I understand where you are coming from in this post. It just seems like when you have to cut something out, music takes the hit.

Sam said...

I understand. I wasn't a music major, but I studied piano through college and miss playing sorely. I've contemplated buying one of those digital pianos with weighted keys, but I'm a "piano snob" and think I would rather wait until I can afford to buy a nice one someday. People do underestimate what goes into making music. I once had an ex-boyfriend tell me quite seriously that he could play as well I did, it was just a
"rote" exercise after all, not mentally challenging.

Unknown said...

Oh yes, I totally agree with you about the piano. I am not very good at the piano, although I can plunk out a few things to sing to but I much prefer the real thing to a digital piano.

Anne said...

When you are ready to teach voice again we are ready for Kelsey to take some lessons!