In other words

Tired of my own thoughts, stale and weak,
I'll let these nobler voices speak.

The Huron Carol –
Father Jean de Brebeuf, 1640
‘Twas in the moon of winter-time
When all the birds had fled,
That mighty Gitchi Manitou
Sent angel choirs instead;
Before their light the stars grew dim,
And wandering hunter heard the hymn:
“Jesus your King is born, Jesus is born,
In excelsis gloria.”

Within a lodge of broken bark
The tender Babe was found,
A ragged robe of rabbit skin
Enwrapp’d His beauty round;
But as the hunter braves drew nigh,
The angel song rang loud and high.
“Jesus your King is born, Jesus is born,
In excelsis gloria.”

O children of the forest free,
O sons of Manitou,
The Holy Child of earth and heaven
Is born today for you.
Come kneel before the radiant Boy
Who brings you beauty, peace and joy.
“Jesus your King is born, Jesus is born,
In excelsis gloria.”


Christmas: 1924 -- Thomas Hardy
“Peace upon earth!” was said. We sing it
And pay a million priests to bring it.
After two thousand years of mass
We’ve got as far as poison-gas.


The Holly-bough – Charles Mackay
Ye who have scorn’d each other,
Or injured friend or brother,
In this fast fading year;

Ye who, by word or deed,
Have made a kind heart bleed,
Come gather here.

Let sinn’d against, and sinning,
Forget their strife’s beginning,
And join in friendship now;

Be links no longer broken,
Be sweet forgiveness spoken
Under the Holly-bough.

Ye who have loved each other,
Sister and friend and brother,
In this fast fading year;

Mother and sire and child,
Young man and maiden mild,
And let your hearts grow fonder,
Come gather here;

And let your hearts grow finder,
As Memory shall ponder
Each past unbroken vow:

Old loves and younger wooing
Are sweet in the renewing
Under the Holly-bough.

Ye who have nourish’d sadness.
Estranged from hope and gladness,
In this fast fading year;

Ye with o’erburden’d mind,
Made aliens from your kind,
Come gather here.

Let not the useless sorrow
Pursue you night and morrow,
If e’er you hoped, hope now—
Take heart, uncloud your faces,
And join in our embraces
Under the Holly-bough.


Ring Out, Wild Bells
-- Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light;
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more,
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease,
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.

losing my voice

With this bout of asthma, I am grateful that I actually have not lost my singing voice. Two years ago I did, right before a concert, and was worried I wouldn’t be able to even speak to announce that I wouldn’t be singing. I did hobble through the program though, having not been able to phonate for days.

After about two months of my current lung woes, my cough is finally going away; I was even able to exercise for the first time in many weeks, taking deep breaths and scampering on the elliptical machine as if I were born to it. But my singing has not come easily this semester though, thanks to the asthma, (which made my voice respond as flexibly as a rusty tool) and to my airhead teacher, whose unprofessionalism and slim advice left me with little to learn from.

(An aside: I once lost my speaking voice some 10 years ago, before I started singing. I was playing in the orchestra for a summer stock company on Cape Cod, performing nine shows in 10 weeks, rehearsing in the morning and playing in the evening six days a week (two shows on Thursdays). Sniffles ran quickly through our close quarters in the inn (the room I shared with six other girls was nicknamed The Orphanage), and my cough turned inexplicably to laryngitis. It was awesome. My horn playing took on new dimensions, as, having no other alternative, my instrument became my voice.

After Rome, that was the best summer of my life. It was music theater boot camp, but spending every afternoon on the beach, hanging out with clean-cut, all-American, chipper young performers, and playing music does not constitute torture. When I arrived I was just beginning to do damage control from an evil relationship that had ended months before, and I came to the Cape renouncing men.

“Where will you be living?” A friend had asked.

“All together in one big house that’s a stroll away from the beach.”

“Just how many seconds will it take before you hook up with someone?” She demanded.

Touché, my friend. My sourpuss feelings evaporated when I walked into the inn’s lounge, (looking cute, I imagine, in my white sundress with the flowers and butterflies) and met THE four cutest guys in the company: a blonde, a redhead and two brunettes, this being a music theater troupe after all. Without thinking, I slipped into my goofball, all-smiles routine. “You know that new horn player?” Said the blonde, as was later reported to me by the redhead. “She’s mine!”

But my memory brings to mind that flame-colored hair, endless ivory skin and, on one occasion, a walk on the nighttime beach, which was illuminated with purple flashes from a distant storm. We returned to the inn, and I struggled to scrape the sand out of my hair as we stopped in the yard to chat and watch the rabbits in the grass. “You are… breathtakingly beautiful,” his baritone voice soothed, but I was the one who was breathless. (Freak out not, Mom and Dad, there are no more details than that to divulge.) But I digress. I digress, I digress.)

Back to the present time.

During this busy month of illness and performances, ill-supported by a shapeless voice teacher, I felt that I couldn’t keep up vocally. I had time to learn the pieces, pretty much, but not work them into my voice, so my concerts felt ill-prepared. As with exercise, I am now easing myself back into practice, singing at length and gently trying to acclimate the muscles. The first few days of this process are rather squawky.

But I also feel that I have little grip on my written “voice.”

“Why don’t you write fiction?” A new companion has asked. The ability to create something from absolutely nothing is to me what the ability to sing is to some people: a divine anointment bestowed on only the few, those heavenly beings resembling angels more than men. I realize that fiction and poetry writers are as much a dime-a-dozen as singers are, but truly, I’m fairly certain I am not capable of creative writing.

As a musician, I am an interpretive artist. Put the finished work before me and I can bring it to life. In the orchestra, this involves matching your articulation to the rest of the section, deciding how a Mozart sforzando should be different from the same marking in Wagner, and above all, following the man with the stick. In opera, it’s about singing an aria louder, higher, and presumably more beautiful than the thousands of singers who have sung the same piece before you. For early music, which challenges performers to compose and improvise as much as jazz musicians, you must learn the vernacular of ornamentation in different national styles and time periods: embellishments for an early 17th century French song are very different than an Italian song form the same time. The English and Germans are different too, but what about the German composer who studied in Rome? Or an 18th century composer writing in the “ancient” style? But the many rules you need to follow actually give you more choices, and before you know it you have enough colors on your palate to make the piece your own.

Yet it’s not creativity. It’s assembling data and reshuffling pieces. I can only take the same approach when I “ornament” with words. I take my stories, find mellifluous ways of expressing them, and put them on the page. This summer, where walking through the Roman cityscape made my days seem like waking dreams, my stories wrote and embellished themselves. Here with the Puritans, I’ve had less material for inspiration, but no matter where I am in the world I cannot venture out of my reality. The obvious result of this is that I will simply run out of material someday; maybe then I will have the courage to use my imagination.

Writing this now, I feel my ideas rise, smolder, and vanish before they get to the page. Perhaps if I had a more creative sense, my writing would develop on its own, become a different universe from my narrow reality, teaching me new ideas and adding depth to my feelings. Perhaps. Maybe I'm just suffering from blog depression: http://www.thenonist.com/downloads/thenonist_blog_depression.pdf

I would like to end this discourse with a concise, elliptical, and deeply beautiful couplet that summarizes my thoughts and brings a tear to the eye. I wish I could, but I don’t know how.

The most mysterious email I've ever received

Hi, are you the same Amanda Keil that used to be fathandsammysmom on parents.com? If so, please don't erase my email. It is extremely important that I talk to you..

Thank you,

Janice M.

Instead of blogging I've been translating...

Douce Beauté (anonymous, 17th century air de cour)    

Douce beauté, doux attraits, douce flame,
O douce voix, et doux ris, et doux pleurs,
Vous n’estes que feinte et douceurs;
Si vous l’estiés au vray, vous me rendriés mon ame.

Prier, pleurer, et ne voir point esmeuë
Ceste douceur dont vous m’entretenés,
Fait dire qu’à tort vous prenés
Le nom d’une vertu qui vous est inconnuë.

De m’afranchir d’amour je désespere,
Ceste rigueur cependent durera,
De ma constance on me louera,
De vostre cruauté vous aurés vitupère.

D’estre cruelle, hélas! Qui voudroit l’estre?
Onc en amour de nom ne se trouva;
Ce luy qui premier l’eprouva
Sans cœur en l’estomac malheureux devoit naistre.

Soyés moi donc douce, douceur, doucette,
Sans la douceur la beauté se perdra,
Douceur feinte ne durera.
Durés douceur, m’amour en durera plus nette.


Sweet beauty, sweet charms, sweet flame,
Oh sweet voice, and sweet laughter, and sweet tears,
But your sweetness is only feigned;
If your were true, you would give me back my soul.

To pray, weep, and never see the break of dawn
This is the sweetness you keep alive for me,
This is the harm you do, to take
The name of a virtue that is unknown to you.

To free myself from love I despair,
This harshness, however, endures,
For my fidelity I am praised,
For your cruelty you are slandered.

To be this cruel, alas! Who would like to be?
One in love does not find this word;
It is that which is first encountered
Without heart in the stomach, sorrow must be born.
Be sweet to me then my sweet, gentleness,  
     sweetness.
Without gentleness, beauty is lost,
Feigned gentleness does not endure.
Be sweet, my love will last more purely.


Words in bold indicate ornament placement.
(Translation: Amanda Keil)