In which aliothsan had watchen astaunished
A small group of us (people in the arts preorientation program) were heading back from central campus toward the dorms. We passed through Lobby 7, which is basically the main entrance of MIT. Big open space all marble and under a huge dome. So yay lots of echoes and lovely acoustics.
A circle of people was standing there, not doing much at the moment. A couple of our counselors greeted a couple of them. We were just about at the doors when they started singing, and I was stopped dead.
Oh how they were singing! The song was inexpressibly lovely, floaty, simultaneously passionate and restful. I just stood there with my eyes shut, ignoring everything else but the sound. I almost cried a couple times, and got to breathing hard when the music got to a big upwelling.
It was like being rocked on ocean swells. Like standing in a field, looking up at the sky, and floating upward. Like when sun rays first fly from behind a bank of cloud. Beatific, uplifting. I let it be all-consuming. And oh, was it ever worth it.
After they finished, I sort of wandered around their periphery, and then they greeted me. I asked amazed, "Who are you people?" and they told me they were the Cross Products. MIT's Christian a capella group.
And then, wonder of wonders, they invited me to sing with them. Ah! We did the same song again, and I followed along on an alto part, which was basically easy backup. Not hard to sightread at all. And it was beautiful again, but not all-consuming; I did have to pay attention to technical stuff, after all. But I felt the numen, the inspiration, the need to sing, that I haven't felt in far too long. And it made me realize how much I'd missed that feeling. I can get it a little with singing on my own, but on my own I can't produce the kind of multilayered harmony that really gets me going.
(Why is so much of the best music, religious music? It's not as if atheists and agnostics have no emotion, or appreciation for beauty, or sense of romance or epicness, or what have you.)
But hooray for being Alive and really enjoying things. (No one else stopped to listen.) I wish saizai had been there -- he'd have enjoyed it too, and it's so good to enjoy things with other people.
A circle of people was standing there, not doing much at the moment. A couple of our counselors greeted a couple of them. We were just about at the doors when they started singing, and I was stopped dead.
Oh how they were singing! The song was inexpressibly lovely, floaty, simultaneously passionate and restful. I just stood there with my eyes shut, ignoring everything else but the sound. I almost cried a couple times, and got to breathing hard when the music got to a big upwelling.
It was like being rocked on ocean swells. Like standing in a field, looking up at the sky, and floating upward. Like when sun rays first fly from behind a bank of cloud. Beatific, uplifting. I let it be all-consuming. And oh, was it ever worth it.
After they finished, I sort of wandered around their periphery, and then they greeted me. I asked amazed, "Who are you people?" and they told me they were the Cross Products. MIT's Christian a capella group.
And then, wonder of wonders, they invited me to sing with them. Ah! We did the same song again, and I followed along on an alto part, which was basically easy backup. Not hard to sightread at all. And it was beautiful again, but not all-consuming; I did have to pay attention to technical stuff, after all. But I felt the numen, the inspiration, the need to sing, that I haven't felt in far too long. And it made me realize how much I'd missed that feeling. I can get it a little with singing on my own, but on my own I can't produce the kind of multilayered harmony that really gets me going.
(Why is so much of the best music, religious music? It's not as if atheists and agnostics have no emotion, or appreciation for beauty, or sense of romance or epicness, or what have you.)
But hooray for being Alive and really enjoying things. (No one else stopped to listen.) I wish saizai had been there -- he'd have enjoyed it too, and it's so good to enjoy things with other people.