Earlier today my always-looking for-an-adventure friend, Christine, called me up to tell me about an event at our local neighborhood Arts Exchange - the FaSoLa Singers demonstration.
I, too, love a new adventure, and probably even more than that I love music, particularly singing whether it's listening to it or joining in. I decided to take the boys and join Christine on her latest mini-adventure. I was a bit surprised by what we encountered this night.
The city Arts Exchange happens to be in our neighborhood so typically I can expect to see at least a few familiar faces at an event. This night I was greeted, Christine & her girls excluded, by a room full of strangers all sitting neatly in a square although at this point I didn't really notice the square part of this scene. No place to hide in the back with my almost-too-tired-to-be-out-in-public boys. Drats. I thought the "square" was really a poorly formed circle so, not having enough seats in any particular row for the kids, Christine and myself, I pulled up a chair and rounded off a corner. Somewhere along the line the kids must have sensed the organic movement in the room and quickly whipped off their shoes. Then it started. And I'm still not quite sure what to make of this part of the experience. The voices filled the room and created what can only be best described as a unique blend of Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack meets Church music meets High School Choir Practice. Christine & I dragged our kids to a previously unknown to me American tradition (circa 1840's) of unaccompanied singing using the FaSoLa system.
Essentially the singing group uses a songbook (church-like lyrics and vintage poems) consisting of notes unlike any music notes I've ever seen (circles, squares, diamonds & triangles) and sing FaSoLa (I could only manage LaLaLa if I also wanted to keep the correct beat and sing the right pitch). That's how I rank music: pitch, beat then lyrics, as evidenced by my butchering of so many great lyrics (e.g. Ba-by Come Back in lieu of Little Red Corvette). We thought we'd simply be spectators and the kids were a little disruptive to our unexpected partaking in tonights cultural singing experience, so we left before the end but not without a whole new secret world of FaSoLa having revealed itself to us. It is enjoyable to discover something one never knew existed.
Sing On,
Jennifer
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