One of my children’s stories, actually one I am quite fond of, has a central character of a child whose singing is creative. Going back to the themes of innocence and times when people were closer to nature. And it was a strange story for me write because I don’t actually like singing very much.
I can handle friends in choirs for a while, and sing badly to my dogs and understand the whole idea of singing lines to oneself to help learn them, and so forth. I am aware singing has a place. But I never got on with Opera or arias, and was perfectly in agreement to the critic who said opera is acting with singing to the detriment of both. I have never thought the human voice the greatest of all instruments and I actually don’t like things like the X-factor much simply because singers are not the best music out there.
I am sure that I am the only person in the world who thinks Beethoven ruined his ninth symphony by scoring that glorious last movement with a choir. It may be that I do not actually understand song, and I would be the first to say it does sound better acapella. Maybe I just think there is too much human in the music, which must be a really odd thing to say since all the music I listen to is human music.
Or maybe the voice asks me to listen whilst music begs me to feel.