In 2018, let’s make, enjoy and support more music
Growing up, a group of friends, family and church members would wander around our small town in southern New Jersey knocking on doors and singing for whomever answered.
Frankly, I remember singing even if they didn’t answer.
We wandered neighborhoods like trick-or-treaters who can’t read a calendar, bumbling around in the cold singing songs in relatively the same key with the goal of entertaining ourselves and others.
The “performance” wasn’t about the musicianship. It was about camaraderie, spreading joy through mediocre singing en masse, and proving our humanity by embarrassing ourselves in front of friends and strangers in our community.
With our lives becoming so over run with fancy electronics that never leave our palms, social media that “must” be constantly monitored and updated, I fear that we’re forgetting how to simply connect with each other outside of the electronic safety blanket of smartphones.
The Christmas caroling tradition is at least partially rooted in an English ritual called “wassailing,” a practice that involved large groups of townspeople wandering about with giant bowls of wassail (a mulled cider) that was doled out to friends, family, neighbors and strangers alike while singing songs and reveling each other’s company. After going down a rabbit hole of caroling and wassailing on the web, I discovered the core of the practice of caroling goes much further back than England in the Elizabethan period.
Sitting here with my cup of coffee daydreaming about caroling from all of the Christmas pasts, personal and historical, brought forth some questions: Do people still walk about singing Christmas carols? Why do random acts of musicianship (amateur or otherwise) happen so infrequently? Does it need to be cold for us to congregate and sing merry songs just for the fun of it?
As 2017 comes to a close and 2018 emerges, most of us will fall into the mindset of self-improvement. Gym memberships will soar. Vegetable sales will rise. Grandiose proclamations of making a better life will fill the status updates of social media. What if some of us made the conscious decision to make more music? To enjoy more music? To support more music? To potentially embarrass ourselves in front of our neighbors with the hopes of bringing us all together?
Love thy neighbor by banging a drum and singing a happy song. Bring some joy to the street by making music, listening to music, by appreciating music in all of its forms.
Happy holidays and a happier New Year from kumbaya headquarters.
Chris Nylund is a founding member of Field Note Stenographers, a collective of local musicians who write about shows in Middle Georgia. He likes books without pictures, good music and playing a variety of instruments with varying degrees of success.
This story was originally published December 27, 2017 at 11:33 AM with the headline "In 2018, let’s make, enjoy and support more music."