Music, the universal language

Wednesday night in Nice found me singing “Go Tell It On The Mountain” in English, led by a French-speaking German, with eleven other singers from my French church, the Église Réformée. I felt at home.

Last Sunday, I attended the 10:15 a.m. service at the Protestant church in my neighborhood, hoping that I would run into a woman I had met there two weeks earlier. She and her husband had sat in front of me that Sunday, and I had heard her lovely voice, and we had exchanged friendly smiles during the Communion service, so I was hoping to speak with her after church. But after the service I had to endure lengthy small talk with some Americans visiting the church that morning before I had my chance to find her. She was standing by the table filled with juice and salty snacks (that’s a phrase I picked up here: “salty snacks” – I don’t think we ever use that phrase in the US. Must be some European marketing translation – or the English. Probably the English.) in the courtyard, and said hello.

[The French do not initiate conversations by introducing themselves; I’m not sure the origin of this, but the name disclosures come as an afterthought in most conversations I’ve had with people. Almost as if they are afraid to get personal unnecessarily. I might not have recognized this myself; I was given the heads up in a book I read about the French. The authors of that book tell the story of how they were wandering through a small town, and stopped to admire a lovely garden outside a home, and ended up conversing with the owner, who, after a time, invited them into his home, and after a time, invited them to stay for lunch, and, after a long afternoon at this home they left, never having learned the names of their host and hostess.]

She made a comment about my singing voice, and I returned the compliment. I disclosed, as I do in most conversations these days, that I am an American, and told her about my sojourn in Nice. I learned that her husband plays violin in the Philharmonic Orchestra here in Nice, and at the end of the conversation, at a moment when she wanted to introduce me to another church member walking by, did she finally ask me my name. And she introduced herself as well. But, all good intentions notwithstanding, I forgot her name as soon as I walked away from the church.

So, although I was looking for her in the service this particular Sunday, I was a little bummed I could not remember her name. I did not see this woman during the service, but I sat in the same approximate place that I had sat the Sunday I had met her. My experience in churches is that people find a place in the pews that they like, and they go back there every Sunday. (I can still see in my mind the spot where my friend Stewart and his wife, Gladys, sat at Western Presbyterian Church for 50 years. And the spots in the pews of where Richie and his wife sat, and where Kermit and the McKenzies sit.) Et voilà, the man I thought to be the woman’s husband sat down in front of me, several minutes into the service.

The service that Sunday was being conducted by a lay person in the church. There are three pastors in the church, two men and one woman; one of the men I like particularly, he speaks quite slowly and articulates, and I always understand a good part of his message. But today’s leader spoke quite quickly, making it more difficult for me to follow what he was trying to say. Happily for me, the service liturgy is set, and followed each week in a small booklet found in the hymnals; the hymns (“cantiques”) for each service are posted on the very familiar-looking plaques hanging on the walls on both sides at the front of the church.

I do not mind not understanding everything that is said during the service, simply being able to sing during the service is enough for me. It’s been fun to learn some new hymns, and to sing familiar hymns in a different language. I make an effort to match my pronunciation to the pronunciation of those around me; I really do want to sound French. [My experience in speaking with the French is that my pronunciation is very French-sounding; it is not unusual for people to ask me again, after I tell them I am American, You are American?] As a result, I listen fairly carefully to the people singing around me. And on this Sunday, the woman singing behind me was clearly a singer. She had a strong voice, and occasionally dropped down to sing the alto line. I turned around to see her; she was an older woman, sitting with her husband. Singing around another singer always emboldens me to sing stronger, which I probably did this Sunday as well.

After the service, the singer woman and her husband behind me moved forward two pews to engage in conversation with the man in front of me, the violinist, while I sat in the pew listening to the organ. It’s one of those things you do if you don’t want to have to get up and have to talk to people that are mingling after the service. Sit and appear to be listening and getting lost in the organ postlude, so that people don’t bother you and you can leave after they have all left the nave. This is a very friendly congregation, and they don’t have a regular after-church coffee hour (only after the communion service on the first Sunday of the month, it appears), so they do hang out in the nave for quite a while catching up after the service. And, therefore, not surprisingly, the organ postlude finished before the couple had finished talking at the end of my pew I got up and the woman looked toward me and reached out her hand to say hello, and, as happens frequently to me, complimented me on my singing. But she was even more direct; she immediately invited me to sing with a group that meets on Wednesday nights at the church.

Wow! Just what I had been looking for! In the past few months, I had looked around, and asked a few people, and they had confirmed in conversations that it was difficult to get into a chorus in the area. And I had been a bit deflated to learn that most churches don’t have choirs, although I had heard a choir perform at the All Saints Day (Toussaints) service I had attended at the cathedral in Old Nice. But I wasn’t really interested in attending a Catholic church every Sunday. The woman singer went on to describe that the group was very small, and that they sang gospel music (why Europeans insist on singing American gospel music, I have no idea, other than perhaps it’s kind of easy to learn – but that can’t be it, it’s not really that easy to learn!). She asked me my voice part, and I told her I was a soprano, and she got very excited, “We need good sopranos!” she exclaimed. She was quite happy to have found me, it seemed. I walked out into the courtyard with her and her husband, who, it turns out, is also a singer with the group. We ran into the violinist on the way, and she made to introduce me – and realized she didn’t know my name -- characteristically. So I introduced myself, and told the man that I believed I had met his wife a few weeks ago. And he confirmed yes, that was indeed true. So nice to be remembered! (At which point, I learned her name – Suzanne – and his, Pascal). And I learned the name of my new friend, Odette, and her husband, Philippe. Odette walked me over to the church office building, and showed me where the group rehearsed, muttered to herself about having to make copies of music for me, and asked me if I could read music. Oh, yes, I said. It looked like I had just confirmed something she had assumed. She wrote down her telephone numbers on a sheet of paper (with her name, happily, I’m sure I had forgotten it at that point), and I gave her mine, in case I had any questions. I told her I lived nearby; she said they would be happy to drive me home after the rehearsal on Wednesday. ALL of this conversation happening in FRENCH!

Wednesday evening arrived. I had planned my day so that I would be ready for the 8:30 evening rehearsal – a little different take on my regular days, where at 7:30 p.m. I am plopped down in front of my TV set for the next hour, relaxing, watching the news of the day. I ate early (don’t like to sing on a full stomach), and was getting ready around 8 when my portable rang. It was Odette, checking to make sure I was coming to the rehearsal. Yes, I said, I am coming. A tout à l’heure! She said. A tout à l’heure, I replied. (Loosely translated, See you then!)

I headed over to the church, a little late, so I ran a few blocks to make sure I would get there on time. I still don’t wear a watch (Eric – giver of watch – , I do plan to get a new battery in my Barnard watch one day, and take out one more link, so it actually fits me!), so I am a bit creative in ways I keep track of time. I have come to depend on the clocks in the Parking Ticket kiosks that line the sidewalks downtown for paid parking on the street. The kiosks are electronic (and of course, were unworkable during the blackout in the city a few weeks ago), and the time is shown on their face, so I can easily check the time when I start and end my runs, for example, on the kiosk a few yards from my building, or just check to make sure I am on time to an appointment as I walk.

I reached the church just as Odette and Philippe pulled into the church parking lot in their car. I went into the church office building with them; and we discovered that the church council was meeting (having a “reunion”) in our practice room. Apparently the council usually meets in the church, but for some reason this night the group was sitting in the conference room where we were to rehearse. So, after a bit of standing around, and other singers showing up and being introduced to me – with their names! – we found a key and went into the church for our rehearsal.

We probably started singing about 9 p.m. The scene was familiar to me, people chatting up, finding their music, the conductor (the “chef”) passing out new music, and finally, the group standing in a line in front of the conductor in our voice parts, beginning the rehearsal with some calisthenics and vocal exercises. The warm up was needed; the church was pretty chilly; most of the group wore their jackets throughout the evening (except the conductor, who insisted on wearing just his t-shirt – well, in addition to his pants).

There were four men, three basses and one tenor (the conductor filled in on the tenor part when we were all singing together). There were three altos, and I made the fourth soprano. The mix in ages seemed from mid-thirties, or possibly younger, to my new friends Odette and Philippe, who seemed to be in their late sixties. And basically, everyone was a singer and could read music pretty well, except for one bass, which meant that there was a lot of time spent wood-shedding notes (i.e., endless repetition with the intent of getting it into one’s brain) with the bass section.

The description Odette gave me of the group’s music was not far off: the first piece we practiced was “Go, Tell It on the Mountain.” And, amazingly, we practiced this for about an hour. They all seemed to pronounce the English pretty well, but the music was clearly not very familiar. I did some singing that was not on the written page, just from habit, for which I was corrected by the conductor. Oh ,well. But I was definitely enjoying singing with a small group, and happy to have found a friendly group of like-minded people here in France. Just when I had thought it was not possible!

We finished the rehearsal with “Lo, How a Rose ‘Ere Blooming,” the Praetorius chorale that I think one cannot have gone through church as a child and not memorized at some point. The conductor began by talking the group through the German text (“Es ist ein Rose entsprungen”), which was clearly unfamiliar to most of them (but I have sung a thousand times). It wasn’t until we started singing the piece, that someone said, “Oh, that is (French words used in the song – sorry don’t know them yet!)” and they realized that they all did know the piece.

We will sing the two pieces (and hopefully a few more) at the church service on December 14th. I’m not sure whether this group just got going, or has been doing this periodic performance gig for years. There was a conversation ongoing as we were gathering about how the pastor had asked that the group sing at a funeral service on Friday at noon. There was much going back and forth about what did he think? How would people be able to perform at noon? I got the feeling that, one, that they had never done such a thing, and two, the logistics of such a thing had never been considered. But, if the pastor is all of a sudden getting the idea to have the group sing at a funeral, I imagine this is may be a group just getting up and running. Just a musing on my part.

I had to tell my fellow singers that I would not be at the rehearsal next week, on account of the “fête Americain” of Thanksgiving, when I will be in Rome. They nodded understandingly. ALL conversation occurring in FRENCH!

So, now you know how happy I am that I can talk in French with other French people.

And, I’m singing too. Can it get any better than this?

Sure. I’ll let you know how my 10km race goes this weekend!