Good Vibes

I sang in a women's choir for 14 years. My time with the choir was filled with music (of course!), camaraderie, study, practise, joy and angst. Each season culminated in a concert for an audience of 600 people. Standing on stage, shoulder to shoulder with almost 50 women, our voices all raised in song, I could feel a powerful connection with the audience and each other, even though our eyes were on the director.
The connection between the performers and the audience is palpable. When everything is just right - notes, pitch, volume, expression, focus and intention, the audience is engaged on a deeper level than just listening. A performing artist in any discipline can tell if that connection has been made long before the audience responds with applause. In order to achieve that ideal performance level, ensemble performers must first connect with each other. For musicians, it is on a physically quantifiable, vibrational level. When I sang with my fellow choristers, the perfect blend our director always sought would be achieved when we vibrated in perfect harmony, even if we were singing in unison.
Harmony is defined as a state of perfect balance and proportion. It is a term applied to music, mathematics and mood. When something is harmonious, it is either beautiful or peaceful, or both. (I make the distinction because music like Beethoven's Ode to Joy is certainly beautiful, although not necessarily "peaceful" in the strictest sense of the word.) When the heavenly bodies of the sun, moon, planets and stars were erroneously thought to orbit the earth in perfect concentric circles, the movement of these celestial bodies was believed to create the "music of the spheres." As fate would have it, the choir I sang with is called Cantores Celestes, which is Latin for "celestial singers." How perfect. In order to create music that sends one's spirits soaring, there must be complete accord amongst the singers themselves, at least musically. I met many beautiful, gifted and special women during my time with Cantores Celestes. A number of them have become dear friends I will cherish all my life. In different circumstances - in an office, for example - I doubt very much I would have made the same intense connection with some of these women, because we are so unlike each other. It was music that brought us together. Despite differences in outlook and beliefs, when we sang together, i.e. vibrated together, we were connecting on a quantum level. Now that's really deep, both physically and metaphysically.
Everyone and everything in the universe vibrates. The human body is a living, breathing, vibrating instrument. When we choose to raise our voices in song rather than anger, we become instruments of peace. That is why music is known as the international language. Sir John Tavener, choral composer and English mystic, says that "if the world is to be saved, it will be saved by beauty." Amen to that.
- G.P.