An experience I feel we don’t have enough of these days is the feeling of singing in chorus together.
I have always liked songs with chorus where many voices join together to answer the call, join voices
The first time I noticed the power of this was at school and it probably marks one of the few lasting positive experiences of my secondary schooling and it was only by pure chance and misfortune.
It was the last day of school and we (150 boys) were sitting in the school listening to some words from the heads of sixth form. We couldn’t wait to get out of there. The end was so near. And, after all the years of singing christian anthems in the morning with Mrs Merryweather on the piano and barely anyone singing, we had just one last song to go. Let’s get it out of the way.
The P.E. teacher came on stage. We all knew he had a terminal disease and he wouldn’t live long.
He said:
You will never see me again. Sing with me one last time lads.
Everyone was taken aback and had a sudden realisation that we should take this seriously. We did. We all stood up. We sang like we had never sung before and we all connected, like in a march, and repsonded to a call.