MEME: The Joy of Playing Music Together

 

Being Together January 21, 2021

We had our second music practice this evening for the University of Chicago Middle Eastern Music Ensemble in preparation for the Persian Concert. 

The truth of the matter is that it is not really a music practice and we are not actually going to have a concert.  In these pandemic times, there will not be a concert.   Instead, we are preparing to record two music videos to release on YouTube.  Instead of practicing, which is hard to do with forty musicians on Zoom, we are reviewing the music by sectionals:  strings, percussion, woodwinds, and traditional instruments.  We are reviewing the process and protocols of how to record our parts at home, mostly, on our phones. 

Last year at this time, we were practicing together at the Logan Center at the Univeristy of Chicago.  We practiced for eight weeks and presented our concert two Saturdays before we went on lockdown.  We did two performances that day.  One in the afternoon and the other in the evening.  They were excellent and given we have not been together since very memorable.

In our Zoom call this evening, we watched a video from those concerts.  It was of the song that we will be recording this year.  While watching it, the chat was full of messages of the members of our ensemble expressing how much they were missing being together for both practices and the concerts.  We break into small groups in the middle of our Zoom call each week.  The purpose is to allow a bit of socializing and discussing the song and any concerns we have with recording it.  In the breakout I participated in, we were talking about how hard it could be to record a single track, how we all recorded it over and over again, and how we weren’t happy with the final version we uploaded that was used in the video.  We missed being in the ensemble, playing in our section, how much easier it was to fit in a meld when the people around you were playing the same part you were.

Being Together January 18, 2020

The bottom line is that we missed being together and playing together.  The whole country, the whole world, is feeling the same way.  We are missing the simple joy of gathering.  I have to note, that it was a year ago today that the first confirmed case of the Corona virus was reported in the state of Washington.

Last week, Facebook highlighted a post I had made last year of photos from the first practice for the Persian Concert.  As Facebook does, it offered me the opportunity to re-post them.  I did.  Members of the ensemble all liked the photos and commented, again, how much they missed our face-to-face practices and the concert.  Our director, Wanees Zarour asked in a comment, “Have you been taking screenshots of the zoom sessions in lieu of the photography?”  I answered, “No, but it is a good idea.”  Wanees then said, “I was joking, but now I’m agreeing with you!!”

So, tonight I took some screenshots during our Zoom call and posted them.

It must be noted that I participated in all this tonight in an aura of sadness.  I learned just before our Zoom call that a good friend was seriously ill with the virus.  He is not expected to make it through the night.  Part of why he is such a good friend, is that he is a talented clarinet player and we played a dozen gigs together in the late 1990s and early 2000s.  We knew each and were friendly before, but we became very good friends from the first time we played together.  He was so easy to work with and we were so naturally compatible and complementary together on stage especially with his son playing the dumbeg.  He is seventeen years my senior, but that generational difference meant nothing.  We were simply good friends that loved to play our music together.  This news about him made everything this evening quite bittersweet.  My thought and prayers are with him and his family.