Strong Song

I’m about to write something about the game of soccer, so I should preface this with a confession that may make a few of my present and past voice students a bit unhappy – but here goes:  I have never been much of a  soccer fan.  I feel bad about that,  especially because a number of my voice students over the years  – Nick Barootian,  Mike Anderle, Sam Vecchito, Sam Johnson,  Nicholas Daly, just to name a few – have excelled at the game.   But whenever I’ve taken the time to watch the game on television (and a couple of times in person)  it’s just left me pretty cold.  Chances are it’s because I’m a rather impatient person,  and one tends to wait a long, long time for things (such as scoring) to happen.

So why was I willingly watching one of the semi-finals of the European Soccer Championships?  It’s because one of the teams playing was Wales … renowned as a nation full of singers!  My first encounter with the Welsh came about twenty years ago when I was asked to provide some entertainment for the Racine chapter of the St. David’s Society.   I had been told beforehand that their meetings always ended with spectacular sing alongs,  but that didn’t properly prepare me for the first time I actually heard a roomful of Welsh people raise the roof with their national anthem or with the most beautiful of all Welsh hymns,  “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling.”   It was really amazing.   A few years later,  I had the once-in-a-lifetime experience of attending a massive Welsh Song Fest  (called a Gymanfa Ganu) in a large arena up in Milwaukee.  I learned about it from a guest on my Morning Show,  Geraint Wilkes,  who was one of the organizers of this huge event that drew thousands of people of Welsh descent from across the country as well as from overseas.  One of my voice students at the time, Nick Barootian,  came along with me-  and the two of us got to experience the overwhelming thrill of hearing 18,000 Welsh people singing their hearts out.  (We sang along on the songs we knew-  but our puny little voices didn’t matter too much in such a gigantic throng.)

It was one of those experiences that I could never forget,  and yet I hadn’t really given it much thought in many, many years.  But then earlier this week,  while flipping through channels,  I stumbled across the sight and sound of a huge arena of people dressed in red,  singing as though their lives depended on it.  I didn’t recognize the song until that massive crowd broke into “Wales!  Wales!” – sung in a rising perfect fourth, with long fermatas on each –  that I realized that I was hearing the Welsh national anthem for the first time in years.

What made it even more inspiring was that every member of the team – including their star player, Gareth Bale – was fervently singing along.   It was nothing like the typical NFL telecast where the vast majority of players appear incapable of moving their lips, letting alone singing with gusto and passion.   These guys clearly knew the song- and loved the song – and the sight of them singing so fervently brought tears to my eyes.   (In the photo below, Bale is third from the left.)

I ended up recording a later rebroadcast of the game so I could hear the anthem in its entirety – and I must have played and replayed it two dozen times!  And then it occurred to me that I should listen at least once to Portugal’s anthem as well-  and while it’s not nearly so stirring an anthem as the one for Wales,  it had its own cheerful energy,  and their fans and players sang it joyously if not quite with the mighty splendor of those Welsh fans.   (Pictured at the bottom: the star of the Portugal team, Cristiano Ronaldo.)

It was stirring stuff – and part of what made it so beautiful was not just the ferocious passion with which each anthem was sung …..  but also the respectful, quiet attention that each side gave to the other.  Soccer is a sport whose fans can get carried away – occasionally with tragic results – but it’s almost as though the act of singing has a way of drawing out our own sense of humanity …. and inspiring a much deeper understanding of those who come from other places and cultures.   Maybe part of it is that we make ourselves vulnerable- we open ourselves emotionally when we sing-  in a way that both stokes and tempers our own patriotic zeal.   And when we hear each other’s anthems, whatever they may be,  we know each other as brothers and sisters on the same planet.  That’s what this moment felt like to me, and it was a truly beautiful moment …. and it makes you wonder if Singing might be one means by which we can begin to draw this fractured country and world together.

This afternoon,  I experienced something roughly comparable during the opening ceremony for the national convention of NATS-  the National Association of Teachers of Singing.    A cherished tradition with the opening ceremony is that all of us assembled …. this year roughly 1300 voice teachers and students …. join together in singing the national anthems of the U.S.A. and Canada…. and later on to sing together Franz Schubert’s stirring “An die Musik.”    It’s amazing-  and maybe even a little bit scary –  to hear that many people pumping out that much sound ….. as though we’ve been suddenly invaded by 1,000 Brunnhildes and 300 Wotans, every one of whom is intent on breaking the world record for decibel-production.   (And I get swept along with everyone else, throwing out nuance and understatement in favor of blowtorch intensity volume.)   It’s always been quite exciting,  but I have to say that there was something special in the air this time around …. as though the act of singing was one way for us to defy the darkness and horror that seems to be springing up on all sides of us.   There is something about the sight and sound of a roomful of people  singing the same song with every fiber of their being that gives one hope that maybe there is a way out of this dark and scary valley where we find ourselves …. and that maybe it will be singing that help lead us back into light.