7.24.11
My alarm sounded far too early on Sunday morning, and I drowsily reached my hand through a tangle of blankets to delay its call for another five minutes. I was tired enough that the thought of climbing out of bed, showering, and playing piano for mass seemed to be an impossibly overzealous task. It didn’t help that my room, with its thick, blotched yellow glass and dark curtains, blocked out all but a faint glow of light during all hours of the day. For all I knew, the clock was wrong and it was still three in the morning. Perhaps, I thought, the chapel would call and say that there was no need for music that morning, and that I could continue sleeping, and that, in fact, I could sleep for the rest of the day. There there, I heard their voices say, don’t worry about anything. Just get the rest you need. Go right back to sleep, sleep…
The alarm rang again, perhaps a bit more violently, insisting that I discard the wishful thinking, that I remember the feelings of satisfaction I always found when playing music for mass, and wake up. The chapel coordinator would be at the house to pick me up no later than 8 am.
The night before, Ynés told me that she would call me early in the morning to tell me who would pick me up. When I didn’t hear from her, I called her home, just to discover that she was currently at the market buying bread. I asked her husband Godo to pass along the message that she call me back. I waited. By eight o’clock, I had heard nothing. I called Ynés again, who told me I should go to the chapel with Elena, who then told me she didn’t know where the chapel was. By 8:35, we called the main community office. No answer. I called Padre Jorge. No answer. Elena tried calling. Nothing. I sat on a kitchen stool, frustrated with Ynés and with the lack of communication, watching the clock hands creep forward to 9:15. The mass was to start at 9:30.
Finally, Julio, who worked closely with Padre Jorge, answered the phone and declared that he would come to get me. As we stuttered towards the chapel in a mototaxi, I wondered why this hadn’t been arranged in advance, and why I would have to explain my tardiness to the choir that had been waiting for me for over an hour. I asked Julio the same questions, and he said he was sorry, and that it wouldn’t happen again. We entered the chapel—Jesús Nazareno, and I met the choir only five minutes before mass.
“So, what are we singing?” I asked. Predictably, I didn’t know any of the songs, and, in horror, realized that there was no guitarist—I was the only instrumentalist. It was now three minutes until mass. “Well, maybe you can sing the opening song for me?”
They sang, wavering in and out of key and rhythm, looking at me expectantly as I fumbled around the keyboard, trying to decipher which key they were most likely to stay in. “That’s all we have time for,” they said, and the mass began. I didn’t know any of the progressions, rhythms, or keys for any of the songs. And I was supposed to play all of them.
The first song wasn’t a complete disaster, thanks to the fifteen seconds of rehearsal we had before. For the remainder of the songs, I had to rely on the choir member my age that sat next to me, whisper-singing the melodies while Padre Jorge presided. It wasn’t at all helpful and was off-key, but with nothing else to go by, I listened. “Ok, I think I have it,” I lied, and waited for the next mass part to arrive, the next moment that I cleave my way through a song, completely guessing where the melody would go, and which chords would run underneath. Because the congregation was small that day, the songs were brief enough that I never really had the chance to latch onto any distinct patterns. The last comedic straw was when I listened to a little boy in the choir behind me belt out the communion song a whole step higher than the piano, grinning and waving as I turned around to glance at him. But how could I be disappointed by him, a child so willing to sing and to be heard?
What disappointed me the most about the morning was that this choir had been waiting for me, had been expecting me, had been excited for me to play with them. It was a lost opportunity. And I wouldn’t have another chance with them during my trip. I shared this with Padre Jorge when he drove me back home; he told me not to worry, and that he’d talk with Julio to make sure that the coordination for the other masses wouldn’t be so unorganized. “You might not think it,” he said, “but even in a situation like this, you add a lot. No matter what, it’s always good to have you play.”
In the afternoon, I gave a choir workshop to a group of about thirty people from the surrounding chapels in San Juan de Lurigancho. They were only shyly receptive at first, but with a little bit of coaxing, the group was soon far more likely to participate, to laugh, and to have fun. We began with solfege, and I taught them the hand signs that go with do-re-mi. Then we played a game where I made the hand signs and they sang the pitch. We battled their tendency to go out of tune, pausing in delight when their voices finally blended and the sound popped into the room. “Did you hear that? Did you hear that?” I said. “Every single one of you has the potential to sing in tune. The trick is doing it consistently.” As I talked, I imagined myself in front of my own music teachers, watching in wonder as they seemingly effortlessly pulled the best sounds from us, with little more than a few descriptive words. I tried to do the same, and only hoped I was doing these people justice, and my teachers justice, and myself justice as I waved my arms around and attempted to make sense of the drastic difference in age and voice quality amidst the people in front of me. And at the end of each segment of the workshop, I quoted my literature teacher from El Salvador by saying,
“Questions?” Nothing.
“Comments?” Nothing.
“Insults?” Laughter.
A man in the back raised his hand. “I want to learn how to conduct,” he said. Soon, I had the group moving their arms in basic movements of two, three, and four. I brought the man to the front of the room. “He’s going to direct us as we sing the Alleluia, ok?” The first time was a magnificent failure. “Not to worry,” I said, “we’ll try again.” It didn’t take him too long to succeed.
We ended with Sihyahamba, and I called upon the Immaculada Concepción choir to teach it to the others (See 7.12.11 entry). And, as there was only one verse in Spanish, we thought up two more verses. “There,” I said. “Now you have a new gathering song.”
In the back of the room, I saw Ynés and Eduardo watching. When I finished, Eduardo would give an hour-long workshop, and then Grupo Siembra would play a concert.
“To begin,” Eduardo said with a smile after I sat down, “why do we sing?” He masterfully managed his workshop, inspiring his listeners and making us feel calm and welcome with his easy grin and casual mannerisms, while still holding a distinct sense of authority—a man who truly knew his stuff and wasn’t afraid to share it with the world.
Later, he and Ynés set up for their concert, and invited me to play with them. “You’ve been listening to the songs, right?” Ynés asked.
“Of course.” And I had been—every night, I fell asleep with Siembra playing in my ear.
It was in that moment that I noticed a man unpacking wind instruments and slinging a quena around his neck. “Are you Jaime?” I asked. The only member of Siembra I hadn’t yet met.
“Yes, yes I am,” he said, smiling. We shook hands, and the concert began.
Before each song, Jaime told me the chords that we’d use. And as we played, I watched Eduardo, who moved his body as he played guitar, a smile plastered on his face as he sang. Ynés played percussion, and Jaime switched between wind instruments and guitar. There was true energy and true happiness in the songs and in the performance—these people were filled with so much faith. I too smiled uncontrollably as I played with them, adding piano into the songs I had heard in recordings, and had admired. And now, I stood with these very people as we shared what we had for the group in front of us. The songs carried a different kind of power when they were played live, and showed me the potential that they carried, a potential that was brought to full light in this very moment. Already, I was having thoughts of how I would take these songs back to the U.S., and how they could be shared with the people there as they deserved to be shared. But those thoughts were put to the side in the present moment, and my full attention was put into the concert, a concert that lifted my heart, that brought me joy, and that made me thank all who had made it possible for me to be there, to be together with Grupo Siembra and amongst the people who had inspired their songs.
After the concert, many people thanked me for the workshop, and thanked Siembra for their music. “I hope you can come back someday to teach us more,” one of them said. A woman from Immaculada Concepción approached me. “I’m wondering if you can make me a CD with the recording of our choir singing that song you taught us. Because, the truth is, I’ve never heard myself singing before, and it would mean so much to me to have it.”
“Yes, of course. What’s your name?”
“Edith.”
“Ok, Edith. I will make that disc for you.”
We departed, and I thought of the evening, and my heart was filled. It didn’t matter how tired I had been in the morning, or how tired I was now. I was happy, and needed to understand that it was happiness like this that would continue to direct my path, that it would continue to help me discern just what it was I would be doing with the rest of my life.
