I was young, I was 16. Apart from writing poetry and books, writing and performing music is another integrated part of my life. I have played (and still play) the Accordion, the Piano, the Clarinet, the Saxophone, and the guitar, as well as signing professionally.
There is so much music that touches me, touches my soul, sometimes in a good way, sometimes in a bad way. When I was growing up being born in the ’70’s, I was a child of the 80’s, so I listened to music of the 70’s and 80’s. I still find that music enjoyable, and love to laugh at how my taste in music has become to the younger generation what my parents taste in music was to so many of my contemporaries (although I love Zeppelin, The Moody Blues, The 4 Seasons, and many other groups that pre-date me).
I grew up in a Evangelical Christian family, and when we were very little, we started listening to A Cappella hymn tapes every night when going to sleep, every night of my childhood life – and so was instilled in me a love for the human voice.
When I grew into my teenage years, and I abandoned all that I knew to be good and wholesome, I moved to rap – and not just any rap, but hardcore, gangster rap. The kind that elevates death and violence towards human beings; it’s no wonder I then got into drugs, and started hanging out with shifty people and doing dangerous things.
When I got married, my wife (very quickly) put an end to listening to that type of music, although I have to say that even to this day a good rap beat and lyrical rhyme will catch my ear and take me back, to long ago days that can’t be forgotten.
As I grew older, I began to fall in love with classical music (In fact I started playing different classical piano pieces around 16), Bach, Beethoven, Schubert, Debussy, and many others. The music is so relaxing, and yet, invigorating. You can float and slide over the notes and the intricate way in which they weave in and out to tell a story.
I’ve even written and recorded songs, and of course, my songs, unlike other people’s songs, have a special meaning to me; and yet, I’m not going to comment on one of my own songs this time (how narcissistic do I really want to seem? :-))
So here I am, one of the first nights of one of my first vocal performances that would set me into years of limelight and competitions. I was singing “In the still of the night”, I can remember it like it was yesterday.
It was very bright, it was a bit cold (it was late in the year, and we were in a big open gym). There were hundreds of people. As typically happens to me when I perform, or speak in public, I get totally lost in the moment, I forget where I am, I forget who I am; there is just me, and my audience, there is just me and my task at hand.
It was an A Cappella song, no instruments; boys singing only. I was standing in the front of a half circle, surrounded by my classmates. The song started up, and I was whisked away. I was singing to that special someone, I was singing like it was my first chance to make an impression and my last chance to ever sing again. I don’t remember the song (although I have a recording of it somewhere [this is how I hooked my wife *grin*], so I can listen to it still).
But when it was all over with, there was cheering, and a standing ovation. It was deafening in my own ears, it was a start of a beautiful thing.
But, in truth, none of this is what captures me back to that moment and time. In fact, when I recall that time, now, none of that happiness and being proud of my performance really shines through that much. When I think about that night, I can’t help but break down into uncontrollable shaky tears. It was right before I went on stage that night that we received a call at my parent’s house telling my parents that my nephew had passed away in his sleep that afternoon.
Even now, I can hear them say to me “You have a big performance tonight, you have to focus on that”, and I can only barely remember how upset they were. I blocked it from my mind. And what impresses itself the most on me from that evening, is that I did just that. It didn’t really bother me at the time, in fact, for years afterwards, I never quite came to a realization (and even now can’t fully grasp) of a parent’s worst nightmare of losing one of their children to the enemy of death.
How I could go on, as if nothing happened, when the world of someone who was close to me was completely destroyed and torn down, I still can’t even fathom to this day.
Sometimes it’s not even what a song says to you that creates that arresting moment, it’s not what you were doing, but what you weren’t doing that is forever emblazed on your mind. I can mourn now, but I didn’t mourn with them then.
And it is, so many times in our life, that we don’t realize the day to day monotonous things that we do aren’t really what’s important; it’s who we do them with, it’s who we share time with, and who we are there for when they need us most.