Welcome back to the Living Musically Podcast.  We’ve talked about how ego plays a negative role in life and in music.  I think it’s important to talk about the opposite.  Thinking of the group as a whole.

We are in an interesting time.  As Covid-19 continues to spread throughout our world, we have been told by numerous experts to cover our faces when out in public.  The reason for the covering is not to prevent you from getting the virus yourself, but to prevent you from spreading it to others.  Yet while out there are so many people not wearing masks.

I am originally from NY and still have friends living there, so I have followed New York’s fight with the virus rather carefully.  In a recent press conference the Governor, Andrew Cuomo said the following:

“It’s disrespectful to the nurses, the doctors, the people who have been frontline workers.  You wear the mask not for yourself, you wear the mask for me.  It’s a sign of respect to other people… you know how you show love? By wearing a mask… Just be responsible and show respect.  I don’t think that’s too much for us to ask of one another.  That’s a basic common decency in this situation.”

When the CDC first recommended face coverings several weeks ago, President Trump said he wouldn’t wear one.  Several weeks later the vice president visited the Mayo Clinic and refused to wear one because he’s “tested regularly”.

During this pandemic, we must all work together and get on the same page to win.  Sadly, people are unwilling to do what’s right for everyone because it makes their lives more difficult.  By going against the experts' advice, we are only prolonging the virus and putting more people at risk.

When I was in High School I fell in love with choral music.  We had an amazing choir.  We did foreign and domestic tours.  While I was in the choir we toured through Sweden.  I always look back on that experience because it taught me so much.  I remember my first year.  It amazed me that there were 80 people of different color, race, social group, cheerleaders, football players, musicians, not musicians, math whizzes, history buffs literally everything.  For 42 minutes, 5 days a week and 2.5 hours every monday night we were all there working to accomplish the same goal. To make music.

My second year in that group, my father passed away.  People that I had never talked to in that group reached out to me, called me, came to the visitation and funeral.  Making music together connected us in a way that most people don’t connect in our world.  Every person in that room throughout my years were like family.  

Whether you sing or not, everyone should sing in a choir.  To be a successful choir, you need to be able to listen to the person next to you and blend with them.  If one person sticks out in a choir, it’s not a choir.  You need to be able to listen to the person next to you, listen to the volume that they’re singing, the vowel that they’re singing and the pitch they’re singing and match them.  Not to mention there’s a person on the other side of you, and in front of you, and behind you.  

The backbone to Living Musically is it’s never about you.  You are essential to the process, but you are also completely replaceable.  Over the years I have gotten rid of my smart watch and replaced it with a “dumb watch” one that has no batteries but operates with a series of gears and springs.  Everything in that watch needs to work together to keep the right time.  If one piece is out of sync, it won’t keep good time.  Living in our community is the same.  When we have a gear or a spring that isn’t working to achieve the same goal, that goal becomes far more difficult.

Thank you for listening to the Living Musically Podcast.  Please make sure you subscribe to the podcast and share it with your friends and family.  I’ll see you again next week Peace