Today’s Column: For the Love of Music

Music has almost always been an important part of my life, from my days of singing along to “Sugar, Sugar” by the Archies when I was a toddler, to my various stints in choirs and bands during junior high and high school, to right here and now — when, at any given moment, I am quite likely to burst out in song. (Ask my co-workers.)

I have many people to credit as being musical influences in my life, most notably my mom with her collection of Glen Campbell, Ed Ames, Jim Nabors and Dean Martin records (thankfully, she also mixed in a little Simon & Garfunkel, occasionally!), and my dad, who turned me on to Elvis. The list even includes Miss Swank, my fourth-grade music teacher, who told me that, according to “the test,” I was lacking in rhythm skills (in other words: Forget about the drums!) but had a mouth suited for instruments in the woodwind family.

My stepdad told me he’d always enjoyed the sound of the alto saxophone. I’m not so sure that included “the squeaking, squawking sound of a fifth-grade band student learning how to play the alto sax”; nevertheless, thanks in no small part to his suggestion, that’s the instrument I chose and played throughout my band career.

There are others who had an effect on me, of course, but the greatest influence in my musical life was a woman named Meredith Dove, who passed away on Saturday after a battle with cancer.

Meredith served as director for vocal and bell choirs in which I was a member. Her influence was profound, not necessarily because she was the best musician or even the best director — although she was an extremely talented pianist and organist who lent her skills to our church on a regular basis, and, as a director, she was nothing less than brilliant in her knowledge of music and in her ability to motivate — but because she loved music so much.

Music was as much a part of her existence as the air around her: She lived and breathed music. If you sang or played for her, you knew this.

It made you want to sing and play your best ... and it made you love music, too.

I spent most of my time with Meredith as a member of the Trinity Ringers handbell choir at the First United Methodist Church in Shelbyville. Meredith donated the bells to the church when I was in high school, and it wasn’t long before our choir was performing during Sunday services on a regular basis. Soon, we were invited to play for special events in the community; people were fascinated by the spectacle of the bells — their visual beauty and their delightful sound.

After I left for college and then, later, ventured off into “the real world,” I would join my fellow former bell-ringers once a year to take part in a Trinity Alums Christmas Eve performance. We would get together for a practice session, learn a couple of songs and then play them as part of the service.

Eventually, I no longer took part in these performances; still, I always looked forward to seeing and hearing the bells.

As with most of life’s lessons, I never realized, all those years ago, how much I was learning from playing the bells. And from playing for Meredith.

I learned that music is rarely a solo act. Yes, you can sing in the shower or in your car, by yourself. You can even sing to yourself; in fact, I would venture to say that most days, most people, myself included, actually wake up with a song in their head. (I recently began taking note of this phenomenon, jotting down the first song I think of during my waking moments. Try it sometime!)

For the most part, though, music involves more than one person. Sometimes thousands of people, sometimes a tiny group, but almost always, at least two: the performer and the listener. The performers often consist of many parts — the various musicians and their instruments that comprise a symphony orchestra, for example — while the number of listeners can vary from the small audience at an intimate live performance to the several million people who might listen to the songs on a CD.

When you are in a bell choir, you usually play one or two bells (some people can play several at a time, but I would have never been able to keep up!). If you happen to be playing middle D and E — which was right about where I was, most songs — your notes usually were involved mostly with the harmonic lines; every once in a while, though, you were part of the melody. Either way, if you forgot to play your notes or, almost as bad, played them on the wrong beat ... well, needless to say, without all the right notes in just the right places, the song would sound just plain wrong!

(And don’t even get me started on the time a song began and, instead of having in front of me the F-sharp bell I was supposed to be playing, I somehow managed to end up with the regular F. That mishap resulted in THE worst moment of my musical career!)

Thankfully, I also learned from Meredith that while practice may not always make perfect, every once in a while, during a Sunday morning performance or even a Wednesday evening rehearsal session, it gets you pretty darn close.

Meredith used to work us, hard but gently, during our practice sessions. In the early days, much time was spent on technique — learning how to hold the bells properly, mastering the basics of bell-ringing, picking up special skills as we went along. We played some very simple songs in the beginning; gradually, we added more difficult numbers to our repertoire.

After we had been at it for a while, Meredith told us about a song she was hoping we would be able to learn in time for a special upcoming performance.

“This is one of my favorite songs,” she said. “It’s a beautiful arrangement, and I know it will sound so lovely on the bells.”

The song was “Canon in D Major” by Johann Pachelbel. You’ve probably heard it, as it has been featured in various films, pop music and even some TV shows. (I like to think of it as “the song from ‘The Wonder Years’ that Kevin Arnold practices and practices for the recital, over and over, but then totally messes up during dress rehearsal and ends up quitting piano lessons.”)

This was no easy task for our young bell choir, either, but, somehow, Meredith believed that we were up for the challenge. She gave us our bell assignments, and we went about learning the song — a classical piece which, when performed by an orchestra, starts out with the lower strings playing a rather somber harmonic line and then adds violins and violas in a vibrant, almost festive melody as the song moves along.

The same principle applied when we played the song on the bells: Starting out with the lower notes of the large bells that the boys played (I would have needed two hands just to lift one of those bells!) and ranging on up through my middle bells to those at the very tippy-top of the scale.

I don’t remember how long we worked on that song; all I know is, it seemed as if we practiced it forever, to the point at which we felt as if we knew it backward AND frontward — and even then, when the day arrived for us to play it in church for the very first time, we still wished we had a few more weeks to work on it.

I don’t recall much about that actual performance, either, except that once the song started, we all knew that we were taking part in something very special. The bells playing harmony kept the tempo steady throughout; the melody continued to add notes and volume and build toward that final note, on which we all played.

From start to finish, and on every single one of the notes in between, you simply knew that you were taking part in something that was just about as close to perfection as possible.

When we were finished, Meredith quietly signaled for us to lower our bells and lay them on the table. Then the smile she’d had throughout the song grew even bigger. She clasped the sides of her face with her hands and told us what a wonderful job we had done.

She was so proud of us, she had tears in her eyes.

Twenty-something years later, I have tears in my eyes, too. I am so proud to have played for her.

Thank you, Meredith, for sharing your love of music.