Music and Community

The fellowship had new hymnal (hmmm do UUs call them hymnals?) dedication today. There was a lot of singing. (no surprise.) This UU is apparently famous for the quality of its music program and well, I understand why. Today I was a bit bemused by the music director pointing out the different parts of the music and explaining the secret code. I was reminded of my very un UU VBS days when one summer the whole hymn thing was demystified.

The part I thought I would chat about though was a bit about music and community. It is somewhere in the preface or the forward and I figured I could find it on the website, but it doesn't seem to be there. Of course, what it brought to mind was community online, about the songs we sing in our postings, about how these join together to become a chorus. (i.e. all those iPod Nano people singing their songs of scratch woe have turned into quite the mighty chorus)

Despite podcasting, we are still a medium (and I hope we remain a medium) of written words. Nothing against podcasts or music, I find them incredibly powerful, but the alphabet, written, arranged, is a much better way to have me absorb some bit of information. (at least if you don't want to repeat it a thousand times first)