In the Middle Ages, the minstrel ( meaning ” little servant”) often composed his own songs, or modified those of others, and entertained Royalty at Court, or literally people on the road ( the 1st true street musicians).
I think of these special souls today that felt a call to music for the pleasure and edification of others. For them, practical spirituality took the form of playing stringed instruments as accompaniment to their singing.
Within the last three years, I finally returned to my first love, music, recalling the wonderful days of late high school and early college during which I became passionate about theater. In high school, I tried out and received lead roles in “Midsummer Night’s Dream” and the musical, “Once Upon A Mattress”. My love of singing, and of opera in particular, began years prior, and carried into my first year of college.
I do miss the stage and the personal transformation that came over me when I performed: a sense of being plugged into a grander world where many things were possible. Ironically, my role in “Mattress” was that of the Minstrel.
After many years, I bought a piano and began lessons. After three years, though my hands are beginning to collaborate, everything I play is still quite slow and labored and it all sounds like a funeral dirge regardless of the composer’s intent. But, every so often, the hands and fingers go on autopilot, and all the notes and chords come out true and the tempo mirrors the notation.
In playing for no one but for the love of just doing it, the moment is often magical, and time stops. Maybe you play an instrument, or sing, or want to do one or both. I commend it to you as a great way to enter sacred time and enter that special contemplative space defined by the interweaving of melody and harmony.
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