Singing and Sounds of Worship

RantWoman is subject to odd interfaith meditations on sound and #SocialDistancing.

RantWoman happened to hear of the Compline Choir at St Mark’s cathedral in Seattle performing to an empty cathedral with the choir observing the rules of social distancing. Here is the podcast page for the weekly performances.

https://complinepodcast.org/

RantWoman notes the echoes in the enormous chamber and then delivered to listeners’ ears via all manner of electronic pipelines. Enough said.

Consider by contrast the sonic environments of various Quaker Meetings RantWoman has attended both in person and now online: If everyone dutifully keeps their audio muted except when speaking, the various coughs and fidgets and collective rustlings will never emerge to the whole community. Nor will worshippers experience blowers, building rattles, rain on roofs, the bird life of the neighborhood, road rumble, sirens, boat horns…

But God will still show up.

As for singing: Happy Birthday with collective delay is still Happy Birthday, but RantWoman as a general rule will try to sing along from home if she is alone and the cat tolerates, but most of the time, RantWoman only wants to sing when there are plenty of other people and even pipe organs around to shelter her challenges in the realm of matching the tune. Perhaps it is not terrible that the internet is full of videos by people also afflicted by such challenges.

We WILL sometime all sing together in person again!