Forgotten customs: we sang
Originally published February 7, 2011
I remembered something this evening that I’m not sure I ever noticed consciously before.
Here’s the pathway to the memory, which is the only way it will make any sense at all:
Keith and I have been discussing Verbs Book 2, gearing up for its publication and some performances of it that he will be doing later on this year. [Ed. note: remember, this was 2011!] As we did with Book 1, we might be revising several of the pieces so they more perfectly realize the music. I suppose you could call it editing! I might end up re-writing some individual Verbs, to make them fit the left hand better, or to flesh out parts that maybe I slighted on the first pass, or just to correct errors I made. Lowering as it is to admit it, I make errors writing my own music. Alas.
Anyway, to get going, today I was playing through several of the Verbs from Book 2. The very first one is Beckon. I don’t think I ever even told Keith this, but the first motive in the melody is based on a fairly universal pattern of notes. Many children’s songs use it too. In 1=do, 2=re notation, and using the dash to fill out the rhythm, it is: 5 - 3 6 5 - 3 -.
So I played through Beckon and remembered that when I composed it I chose that motive because of its relationship to “beckoning,” apparently all around the world. And then a memory surfaced, for probably the first time ever:
When I was a child, in our neighborhood we kids had a calling song to get our friends to come out to play. We didn’t ring doorbells or knock on doors, and looking back in time that seems surpassingly weird. What we did instead was go over to our friend’s house, stand at the front door, and sing their name:
“Oh, Marie! Oh, Marie!”
“5 - 5 6 - - 5 - - - - -. 5 - 5 6 - - 5 - - - - -.”
And we’d keep it up until Marie, or her parent, answered the door.
Our grandmother’s front stoop, where someone may have sung to beckon me outside.
I didn’t invent the custom, and I don’t remember learning it. It was just what was done. Why did we do that? Who did start it? Where did it come from? I have no answers to any of those questions.
But I have to say: I love that we sang. Do any children still sing for their friends?