Tag Archives: choir

Main Piece: The Bonnie Banks o’Loch Lomand

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: CO
Performance Date: 03/02/2021
Primary Language: English

The Bonnie Banks o’Loch Lomand

By yon bonnie banks and by yon bonnie braes

Where the sun shines bright on Loch Lomond

Where me and my true love will ne-er meet again 

On the bonnie, bonnie banks o’ Loch Lomond.

Chorus:

O you’ll tak’ the high road and I’ll tak’ the low road

And I’ll be in Scotland afore ye

For me and my true love will ne-er meet again

On the bonnie, bonnie banks o’ Loch Lomond.

Background: The informant sang this Scottish folk melody in her high school choir. Every year at graduation, the chorus would perform this song in honor of the graduating seniors, it was a tradition. When she graduated, the most emotional part of the ceremony was hearing the students she had to leave sing to her just after receiving her diploma. 

Context: I asked the informant to tell me her favorite song. Instead of giving me her favorite, she gave me the most meaningful and explained to me why The Bonnie Banks o’Loch Lomand holds so much significance. 

Thoughts: The Bonnie Banks o’Loch Lomand is a Scottish folk song about two soldiers who were held in captivity when by the Brits in 1945. One soldier escapes imprisonment and travels back to Scotland, and the other is executed, but his spirit returns to Scotland on a different path. The traditional understanding of this song is important to the culture and history of Scotland. However, the way that my friend interprets the song has less to do with the narrative in the lyrics, and more to do with the feelings and associations that surface when she hears the chorus. The literal meaning is irrelevant to her life but speaks to how one folk artifact can hold spark many different sentiments depending on the context in which it is learned. 

*see  Douglas, Ronald Macdonald. Scottish Lore and Folklore. Crown Publishers: New York: 1982 for more information on the origin of this text.  

Pre-Choir Performance Ritual

Nationality: Native American
Age: 14
Occupation: student
Residence: Franklin, Tennessee
Performance Date: 4-26-2020
Primary Language: English
Language: Blackfoot, Spanish

Main Piece:

Interviewer: You’re in choir, right?

Informant: Uh huh.

Interviewer: Is there any kind of rituals you guys do. Like anything before you guys start?

Informant: Well, one of our teachers, right before we are about to go into a concert, she’ll have us sit in a room and turn off the lights. Then she’ll close the blinds so we are sitting in a dark room. She has us sit criss cross applesauce and close our eyes and doing breathing things. And then she has us think of different places or different things, like, think you’re at the beach and you hear the waves and how at first they are very soft. Then the waves crash, then they go back to soft. Then she compares that to our voices. Then she goes, like, wind on the tall grass or in the trees or something and how you can hear it. But it wasn’t like one thing was way louder than anything else. It was like it all blended together. That’s how she had us get ready for a concert, so we had a calm mindset. We also had, like, a synchronous mindset, where we are all in beat with one another. But it wasn’t like a stressful, like we have to be in beat. It’s like a ‘can we be like nature,’ where we all move together’. And eventually when we move together it will all sound pretty.

Interviewer: Wow, that’s beautiful? Is there anything after the recital that you guys do?

Informant: Not really. I can’t think of anything we do afterwards.

Interviewer: What kind of breathing exercise?

Informant: Well, at first, she has us hold our breath for like 10 seconds, or something. And then breath in and out and in and out. But then our breath has to be in sync with the others, so it’s not like we’re going “huh, huh.” (Breathing hard and erratic.) And how you’d hear like different layers of it from everybody. It’s like “in sync” breathing. So we’ll go “in 1, 2, 3, out 1, 2, 3, in . . .” It’s like different kinda like counting.

Background:

The informant is a fourteen-year-old Native American girl from the Choctaw, Blackfoot, and Lakota Nations. She was born and raised in Tennessee and frequently travels out west to visit family and friends. She is in eighth grade.

Context:

During the Covid-19 Pandemic I flew back home to Tennessee to stay with my family. The informant is my younger sister. We were in the kitchen and I asked her about different groups she was a part of at school.

Thoughts:

Not only was the choir a place to find community, it was a place of ritual, harmony and synchronization. Pre-recital was spent in meditation, softly centering the mind in balance with nature. I enjoyed hearing her explain their choir’s pre-performance routine. It was also a picture of the beauty that can come out of community and teamwork. It is not solely about the individual. Rather, individuals in a group working together as a cohesive unit. Ritual is a creative process, key in attaining a certain frame of mind and promoting active engagement.

Annual Christmas Dinner

Nationality: European American
Age: 68
Occupation: Professor
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 04/27/2016
Primary Language: English

Main Piece: “At the end of the Christmas term in December in school…um…everyone would have to sing in the choir. So a big choir was assembled and everyone had to sing in it in a carol service…so we’d sing a lot of carols. And then afterwards, we would have a nice dinner which was probably the only nice dinner we’d have that term. And then we would each be given a Christmas pudding to take home to our families.”

Background: The informant says the tradition went on about 100 years before he attended boarding school (in England) and continued until the school no longer existed. He says he enjoyed singing the carols because this was the time everyone began to feel Christmas had arrived, even though it was still a week before Christmas. The informant says, “everyone loved the frivolity and the presents they’d get on Christmas.” He remembers that the dinner was infinitely better than the typical dinner, but would fall short of a nice Christmas dinner today. The meal included meat, potatoes, and vegetables. The dinner was noteworthy to the informant because it was the best dinner all term and he enjoyed everyone’s company before they left for winter break.

Performance Context: We spoke over the phone.

My Thoughts: Because the informant was not fond of the typical boarding school dinner, the Christmas dinner was especially exceptional. The tradition was rooted in routine: singing in the choir followed by a dinner that remained the same meat, potatoes, and vegetables, and sending each boy home with a Christmas pudding. It is remarkable that this tradition persisted as long as it did. The informant recalls his anticipation of this annual dinner as it was much more luxurious than what he was used to. The  dinner (singing carols, eating a nice meal, enjoying company) brings to mind a classic retail image of Christmas.

“What’s blue and looks like a bucket? A blue bucket.”

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 30, 2013
Primary Language: English

My informant was in theater and choir in high school. He told me about one particular joke that his choir director liked to tell during their concerts. This is his description:

“My choir director in high school would always tell the same joke during our concerts. I think he learned it from his college a cappella group, and the joke was, ‘What’s blue and looks like a bucket? A blue bucket. And what’s red and looks like a bucket? A blue bucket disguised as a red bucket.’ And I never really thought it was funny, and he told it at every single concert whenever there was an a long transition onstage and it was just silent and awkward in the house, and he would just tell that joke. Then after he passed away halfway through my sophomore year, at every concert since, someone if there’s ever an awkward silence will say, ‘What’s blue and looks like a bucket?’ And we’ll all laugh, but the new choir director doesn’t get it at all. And that’s actually very funny, because he doesn’t get it and we all do, which is probably mean.”

Humor is often used to alleviate tension. In this case, my informant did not always think this particular joke was very humorous, but he appreciated his director’s attempts to fill some awkward silences. This piece of folklore was initially used to lighten the mood of the audience; it also fostered a sense of community, because people who were members of the choir or who attended the concerts regularly could be in on the joke. They knew it was coming, and when it inevitably did, they could laugh together. In contrast, the new choir director was seen as a bit of an outsider, because he did not fully appreciate the context of the joke and never thought it was funny in the way that the rest of the community did. In addition to separating the choir and the devoted concert attendees from the newcomers, this folklore evolved into a token of remembrance. After the death of the old choir director, students told it to honor his memory in a way. It is a small example of how people sometimes use humor to cope with death. Instead of paying somber tributes to the former choir director at every concert, they tell a joke and make people laugh; they are able to fondly remember one of his silly habits together.