“Which do you think was our best song tonight, Momma?” my daughter asks me, her mouth full of leftover pasta.

I think for a moment.  “Well, Glory in the Highest made me cry,” I reply, answering her yet not really answering her.

“I knew it!  I totally told my friends, ‘Watch my mom will cry during this one,'” she gloats, proud of her predictive ability.

“It was that middle part—when you first start singing in harmony,” I begin to explain.  But I can’t.  Because I choke up just to think about it.

Singing in harmony.  Oh, the things that make me cry.

“I love singing the harmony,” my daughter says, her mouth not full for once. “I know all the harmonies to all the songs—I just hear them in my head.”  I give her that who are you? look.  For the longest time, she didn’t love it.  For the longest time, she fought me when I tried to teach her the harmonies to songs for the band.  “I don’t want to—I just want to sing the melody.  I don’t want to stand out,” she would whine.  I tried to tell her one day she’d love it. The taking of a boring line of unison and making it more, making it other, making it magical and rich.  This was joy, I would tell her.  To add to another in a way that is more full, more interesting, more complete.  Once she really got it, she would love it.  I told her so.

And I was right.  Because once you really get it, well, what’s not to absolutely love?

I watched Once with the hubby this weekend—an amazing and sweet film about street musicians in Ireland that contains some really incredible music. My favorite scene by far was the one in which “the girl” takes “the guy” to the music store for the first time and plays the piano for him.  After she’s done, he pulls out his guitar and begins to play and sing, and he teaches her the chords and she begins to play along with him.  As she begins to sing, her voice simple and pure, plucking harmonies out of the air, blending her voice with his, I begin to, well, yes.  I begin to cry.  Just softly–a tear down one cheek, two down the other.  A soft sniffle, and an attempt to pass it off as allergies.  But it is a cry, nonetheless.

Harmony does this to me.

Voice layered over voice, as intimate as skin on skin.  This is what I love about singing.  Two or more tones blending yet distinct and complimentary, like the perfect marriage within which both individuals become one and yet still maintain their two-ness.  There is nothing else like being a part of such a union.

This is why I’ve sung alto my whole life, despite the technicality that my vocal range is really that of a mezzo soprano.  But I don’t want to sing soprano.  I don’t want to sing the melody.  I know—most girls want the melody.  And occasionally, sure, that’s fine.  But to me, that’s not really making music.  What I really want is to be the voice above or below creating the tight harmony—I want the intimacy that is created in the more-ness.  That feels like making music, to me.

We begin singing in the kitchen—Bub, then me, then the hubby—three parts.  Harmony.  “Glory in the highest,” we sing, our voices full, the parts rich.  My heart swells.  These moments—they are glimpses of heaven.  That swell in my heart—I recognize it as the breaking through of the Kingdom, whispered in the language of the angels.  I feel it, and I just know.  This is what I was made for.

Something other-worldly.

Something magical.

Something musical.

Harmony.

It’s what I do.

inspiration music reflection