Guinness
Breaking into song sounds more violent than it really is… It depends on your musical inspiration… Sound of Music is melodious and pleasing to the ear … Sweeney Todd… not so much.
Breaking into song sounds more violent than it really is… It depends on your musical inspiration… Sound of Music is melodious and pleasing to the ear … Sweeney Todd… not so much.
breaking into song not violent? if you can carry a tune, maybe, but if you can’t….
But breaking into song can be an assault on one’s sensibilities …
The pastors of our district and a of church members get together for a district convention in Maryland every two years and do all things pastoral and Godly and learned.
HOWEVER…
They’re human, too. One evening during the convention, they head down to a local crab shack and have the Crab-by-the-crate dinner. They sit at the long, red-checkered cloth-covered picnic tables at the shack and make a significant dent in the cooked crab population of Maryland. And they wash it all down with beer. (Many of them coming from fine German stock of the 1800s.) No-one gets drunk, but the place does get loud.
At one point in the festivities, one pastor in particular gets the urge to sing German folk tunes and starts belting them out in this rich, deep base voice. Remember, these guys are fourth, fifth, and more generation Americans. Everyone else joins in. And we Lutheran folk know how to sing; all of us having musical training from first grade on.
I was at one of these district conventions some years ago and experienced the Crab & Beer Feast Sing-a-Long first hand. It really was something!
Alcohol is a short-term uninhibitor of personal dispositions and a long-term sleep maker. When inwardly happy people get drunk, they get more happy, chatty, lyrical and musical. Sad, depressed and angry people, when drunk, get more sad, depressed and angry. Mix several unhibited happy-time singers with several unhibited hateful hostiles and bouncers become a valuable commodity until sleepy time comes along and everyone passes out, one way or another.
The discussion here is curious. Breaking into song and carrying (off) a tune. Aren’t there laws against such burglary? Oh wait, folks are tipsy.
Pete… At the end of your comment, you never said if your discordant, Beer-fueled, religious sing-a-long experience was something heavenly or hellish.
Stick: Actually, I didn’t say discordant. I DID say none of them (us, rather) were drunk. And I made no reference to religious singing, instead saying it was German folk. (Think German Beer Garden during Oktoberfest.)
In fact, it was very GOOD singing. The Lutheran heritage of music and singing goes all the way back to… well, to Luther himself. A specific kind of music – the chorale – is distinctively Lutheran. There are numerous Lutheran composers and musicians through the centuries, including the greatest, Johann Sebastian Bach, who wrote and dedicated ALL his music to God. (Bach was the regular organist at his Lutheran church the majority of his adult life.)
It continues through modern times. I’d learned to read music and sing melody in first grade, learned harmony in second, and started playing saxophone in third. Many others there has similar backgrounds.
No, the music and a cappella harmonies were excellent and very upbeat. Much, much closer to heaven.
Firedome… Ha! Too True… how’s YOUR singing voice!?
Grey… whose sensibilities? the singer or the listener?
Pete… oh, that’d be a sight to see!
stick… to my knowledge there are no rules against singing in public… or in public houses. I should hope not… I can just see the sign before you go into a pub… that resembles some you see at the entrances to beaches… no dogs, no glass, no beer, no frizbee playing, no having fun.
Pete… I love BACH! I could listen to Bach all day long… in fact, I might just do that ….Hey, Pandora!
brig… How’s the background Bach?
I was doing some punning when talking about folks “breaking into” song and “carrying off” tunes. Yes, getting away and getting inspired are definite pluses of pubs, bars and the like, and not to be outlawed. Still, some discretion may be a good thing. The singing of broadway show tunes may not go over well in a biker bar environment.
Pete… Argh. I didn’t say anyone was drunk, only beer-fueled as you had said that masses of crab were washed down with beer by the Luthern convention attendees in attendance. I’m glad a good experience was had by all. Your story sort of made me think of the very much Luthern-referenced, “A Prairie Home Companion” radio show on NPR.
stick… loving it. I so dig Bach.
Yah… it’d make a great cartoon, though… Harley dudes singing “Doe a deer…”
Does anybody else want crab now?
How about breaking into a violent song?
Squid… Would that be a song ABOUT violence… or a song sung violently… I guess that’d be punk music.
I would love to hear Rye say “Lighthearted Lyricalness” on that many beers. I doubt I’d understand it.
Pete,
Your story reminds me of one of my father’s – an enthusiastic singer himself, he became Lutheran when he went to college; they had the best choir.
Beetles,
Yeah, I grew up and still am Lutheran. I learned to read music at the same time I learned to read and didn’t really distinguish the two. I attended a Lutheran grade school and when I finally went “public” in high school, I was completely SHOCKED to find out a friend of mine couldn’t read music. I mean, he SEEMED intelligent. *lol!*
I’ve since learned that the music education I received – that I considered just “normal” schooling – was in fact a huge privilege. It has made me cherish it all the more.
One of my best pub nights was spent with my pals in Kieran’s in Mpls. in the late ’90’s …We all broke out into Monty Python’s “The Philosopher’s Song” along with a few other ditties that earned us a free round from one of the other patrons at the bar.