We the Choir Gather and We Learn to Sing Together

[Ming the Merciful]

...when you show up for rehearsal or a performance, do you tell people, "I'm a wanderer, so I'm just going to radiate my high vibration self and not do the work of learning the music?"  I kinda doubt it...

I don't tell people that no.

Although, that is closer to reality than you might think.  I'm not a musician or a singer per se.  There is a minimum of technique involved, I cannot read partitions but I do look at it for the words and the notes going up or down gives me an idea of if my pitch should be going up or down, etc...  But if I record myself alone, it's very much lacking.

In the choir, I just sing from my heart.  Together it's no longer lacking, it becomes beautiful.  After a public performance, I've had people from the audience tell me they could feel it coming from the heart.  There was even a new member that joined specifically because of this.

So I never felt the need to do the work of learning how to make proper music.  We learn to make music together.

Honestly, that's just beautiful Patrick and I can feel the heart even behind your words here. I think this is a great example for this thread.

I can relate to what Sacred Fool says, too. As an artist (most of the time, illustrator), I have natural talent and the desire to create art, but I also have extensive training which polished my ability to express myself in the best possible way—in a way that would be received with more clarity and the maximum of impact by others. I have instilled in me the basic skills of perspective, light and shadow, form and structure, color theory—all of which is now beneath the surface of my conscious mind and does not have to be thought about. I learned a great deal as well when I first began as an advertising illustrator. My illustrations became very effective as I strove for excellence. And I feel that while I may not have a direct, face-to-face connection to the people who are viewing any art I do, that there is still a connection between us, perhaps because I put my heart into my work.

So I think there can be heart in an infinite number of expressions. I remember one night when I was at my sister's whose daughter at that time was about 14 or 15. She had two friends there. We decided to do karaoke. There were some songs on disc that the three girls loved, and one in particular that they repeatedly sang because they loved it so much (for whatever reason). After I got the basic tune, and of course the words were there on the screen, I just sang my heart out with those girls. All four of us were just singing as loud as we could and it was like the law of squares amplifying everything about the expression. I could literally feel my chest expanding with heart energy. It is a delicious memory and the connection I felt to those young girls while we were singing together was also part of that seemingly mundane but awesome experience.

When you find your "Inner Reality", you have no need to find anything else. Karaoke? My favourite method of reaching my Higher Self, is, (of all things), Trance Remix music, or Qawwali, (Sufi Devotional Music). Last week i discovered Devotional music from, (of all places), Morocco. I have always had a taste for Middle Eastern and Far Eastern music. I actually prefer Pakistani and Afghani music to Indian music. The other music I love, (it is in my DNA), is Classical Chinese music. There is a past life recognition there somewhere, and  then there is the connection in my family ancestry, (Russian and Chinese).

De enige uitweg is door naar binnen te gaan. De barrière is het Zelf.

Nederlandse if you are wondering, (above). Translation. The only way out is by going in. The barrier is the Self. What has the Netherlands got to do with my family ancestry? Nothing. It just happens to be my favourite European country, and I speak Nederlandse. Plus a little German, French and Italian, (not fluently). So, I am a man of the world, and the Earth is my playground. The Europeans have a more relaxed attitude to life than the North Americans. As the Europeans advanced philosophically in the "Old World", as the North American grew, they clung to the their "Old World" values. So now Europe is liberal while North America remains static. Fundamentalism and Mormonism as the perfect examples. I also have the argument that the "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints" could never happened in Europe. Simply because the various countries would not allow for such childish beliefs. Joseph Smith was a fraud and a conman, and preyed on the gullible. So ends the discourse...