ABSTRACT THURSDAY - DOTS

All right, I know that technically, these are not “dots” but they might as well be to me!  I sing, so guess you could call me a singer, but I can’t read music so when I look at a piece of music, all I see are dots - and yes, I can tell when the music goes up or down, but other than that, I have no idea!

I have tried to learn, but much like aperture on a camera where I find it hard to know whether f2.8 is larger or smaller than f5.6, I find it difficult o remember what the various dots denote.  I guess it’s not really that important to know the “ins and outs” and the intricacies of aperture or even the dots on a page of music and it doesn’t affect my ability to take a photograph or to sing, so I shall just carry on blissfully unaware.

For our streamed online Church service each week, and as I was in the Worship Group, I am often invited to sing my part and then upload it into Dropbox so that it can be merged with others who are singing or playing.  I did have some difficulty recording this particular song, as there are quite a few "musical interludes" and without having someone to bring me in, I came in too early - after a few mistakes, it didn't sound too bad in the end. 

Most of the time, it sounds fine, once it’s put together, but just listening to me singing without any sort of backing is often not that wonderful, but then, as I often think, we can be quite critical of things that we do, which is actually quite negative. How many times, for instance, have you said, “I don’t like being photographed” - and shied away from having your photograph taken?

This is one of the songs I sang last week - and if you want to hear Graham Kendrick and Martin Smith singing it, much better than I ever could, then you can listen here.

So although this is not really abstract, the notes on the page are dots to me, every last crochet, dotted crochet and quaver.  It often used to make me laugh when we were practising and someone would say, “We need to play that in the key of F Sharp” - and I would joke and say “I can sing it in the key of Yale”!!  Sometimes I got “the look” from the Worship Leader, because I was obviously not taking things seriously enough, but I have managed all these years and I’m sure there are many people who don’t read music but still enjoy singing or playing a musical instrument.  What I do know is that when I am singing, I really enjoy doing it - and surely that’s the bottom line, isn’t it?

We had a lovely morning when one of our Church friends, Gill, popped round for a physically distanced catch-up cuppa in our garden - it was lovely to see her again and we had a great time.  Mr. HCB showed her round the garden, so I managed to get a quick shot of them both - see my extra - it seems strange to see him without his hat! 

“When your soul is singing in joy,
     then you know you are doing it right.”
Abira Mukherjee