Singing

Singing is part of my DNA. My paternal grandmother sang alto and played the piano by ear. My paternal grandfather played the fiddle and guitar and sang lead. My maternal grandfather was a fine tenor. My mother sang alto, and daddy sang bass. My sister sings alto and both my brothers sing bass.

Singing is the one thing I’ve always been good at. I’ve played basketball, baseball, and football, hunted and fished, and built cabinets, but those are things I dabbled and worked at with limited success. Singing, though, is as easy as breathing and just as satisfying.

Besides the contribution of my inherited gene pool that contributed to me being a good singer, I was raised on a cappella singing. I’ve always worshipped with Churches of Christ where there are no instruments of music used. The only thing needed to sing a song is a leader to sing the first couple of measures and the audience quickly joins in, sort of like giving a car a push so it can run downhill. Just get it started and get out of the way.

In my pre-teen years, there were Monthly Singings held on the second Sunday afternoon of the month. Singers from throughout the county would converge on a rotating schedule of church buildings, some without air conditioning, so the windows were raised and “funeral fans” were used to stay cool.

People took their places in the pews according to what part they sang. Sopranos up front on the right-hand side when the leader faced the auditorium. Altos sat behind them. On the left were tenors, that rare breed that numbered in single digits, and basses were behind them. Even if you didn’t know how to sing alto, when you sat in an ocean of altos, it was impossible to sing anything else.

I remember one song leader who was built like a bullfrog, with a neck so thick he couldn’t button the top button of his shirt, which meant his necktie was always askew. He had a high tenor voice that pierced the thick, humid air. When he sang “I’ll Fly Away” and hit the high “F” on the first word of the chorus, his face turned beet red and his eyes bulged, and by the end of the song, his face was drenched with sweat.

His son, who looked to be my age, and whose voice, like mine, hadn’t gone through puberty yet, sang as loud as anybody I ever heard. He imitated his father’s style of leading singing, red face and all. It didn’t matter that he was only eleven years old. The congregation followed him like he was a veteran.

I grew up in an era when Singing Schools were a thing. They were one- or two-week events, during which the church met every night and were “schooled” by a guest music teacher on the fine art of singing, including learning to read shape notes. Everywhere my father preached across Alabama and Tennessee, he made sure we had singing schools most often taught by Kelly Doyle, who was the choral director at Freed-Hardeman College.

Under his tutelage a congregation’s singing improved dramatically in enthusiasm, participation, and harmony.

There’s nothing in the world that can duplicate the beauty of a cappella singing done well. It’s completely unadulterated by anything manmade.

When I was a choral director, I would tell my singers, “Singing a cappella is like standing on a stage naked. There’s nothing to hide behind.”

As fate would have it, I ended up being a student at Freed-Hardeman College and had Kelly Doyle as my voice teacher, a man I learned to appreciate and love.

During one voice lesson, when I was a freshman, he handed me back my music and said, “If I couldn’t do any better than that, I would just quit.”

Yeah, he was that kind of teacher.

I suppose he was more interested in telling me what I needed to hear than he was in bruising my ego, because telling me what I needed to hear gave me the chance to decide to be better or not.

After that day, the hours I spent practicing quadrupled.

I learned how to harmonize with others, matching my voice to theirs in volume and timbre, singing harmony either above them or below them, depending on what was needed most.

That’s what makes singing in harmony such a moving experience to participate in or to listen to. All the singers are attentive to each other—moving, breathing, singing as one; hearts beating as one.

When I get to heaven, I sure hope there’s a special section for those who enjoy a cappella singing.

* Taken from The Wit and Wisdom of David Johnson, Volume I1: The Hairy Catfish Caper.