What a strange thing it is that we do. Singing. To organize our thoughts and sentences into structured rhythms. To further organize the words and syllables into predetermined pitches on top of those rhythms and then sometimes hold those syllables and pitches to inordinate degrees. I’ve always felt that it is an odd method of human communication.

Animals do a form of it as well. They howl, they roar, they moan. And each of these moments in time expresses deeply their primitive feelings. We sometimes mimic them in their feelings.

As a song writer, I have often thought deeply about this strange expression of human emotion and communication called singing. In the musical theater I was taught that when the emotion of the moment becomes so high that dialogue can no longer handle it, it is then that a song is born, that the character moves into singing because mere words just do not suffice. When this happens naturally, the audience easily accepts the stylistic evolving into music and song.

Ballads are especially high emotion moments. If you want a character to really express deeply their true feelings, give them a ballad to sing. Why? Because the slowdown of each moment in time, the stretching of each syllable, each word in time, allows the listener to peer deeper into the emotions of the character and the character more time to express the subtleties of each emotional moment. Not only that, but each moment is pitched, if the song is well written, to reflect the rise and fall of these emotions.

Whenever I sit down to write a melody, if it’s to be written to a predetermined lyric, I always first rehearse how the character would say the lyric in monologue. I become the character in the moment and discover how the character would say the line naturally. This predetermines for me the natural and emotionally connected rise and fall of the melody in the moment. I find that the deeper my focus in this preparation, the better the song is. Then I don’t have to “make up” a melody, rather, the melody simply flows out from my understanding of the emotional moment.

In this slowing of time, the emotions pour through the stretched moments that the music supports. Music is pure emotion. Great music is deeply emotional because the composer was deeply emotional when he or she first allowed it forth. When repeated over and over through time, the music becomes a symbol for these original emotions of the composer. When we hear it played, we are transported to the state of the composer when the song was originated.

So when the singer sings, during each held note, the emotion of the singer, the lyricist, the composer and the pianist all pour forth. When a singer sings with an orchestra, the emotions of all involved are allowed to pour forth through each musical note and moment. This is why a concert is such a highly involving experience – because all attending, audience and performers, all ride the same wave together in a kind of emotional unity. A rare human/divine experience.

“In the ordinary mind, we perceive the stream of thoughts as continuous, but in reality this is not the case. You will discover for yourself that there is a gap between each thought. When the past thought is past, and the future thought is not yet arisen, you will always find a gap in which the nature of mind is revealed. So the work of meditation is to allow thoughts to slow down, to make that gap become more and more apparent.” Glimpse After Glimpse, Sogyal Rinpoche

Singing is a step towards meditation. In some cases it is pure meditation. The act of singing opens up our linear time experience so that we may more experience these gaps allowing the true consciousness to come forth, our true spirituality to emerge into this mortal experience. When a great singer sings, whether it is a Pavarotti, a Maria Callas, an Ella Fitzgerald or a Bonnie Raitt, we experience man/woman on the highest of levels, we get glimpses of immortality and tastes of heaven. When any of us mere mortals sing, even in the shower, we reach for something higher that our human normality. When we all sing “Happy Birthday”, we celebrate birth. “Ave Maria” mourns a death. “Yesterday” mourns lost love. “Amazing Grace” praises God.

And in these moments, “the nature of mind is revealed”.

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and information about Peter Link, please visit Watchfire Music.