Community Resulting From Singing from Birth?

People walking around, the city lit up at night, and not a dodgy neighborhood in the entire city. These were my observations of Georgia at 4 am. People always ask if I feel safe traveling alone and honestly most of the time I feel safer wherever I am than home. Statistically, Georgia is one of the seven safest countries in the world-no crime, no slums, only the occasional peddler or homeless person sleeping harmlessly.
I have no data to support this but I'd like to posit the following: could it be the neurological effects of singing, bonding together as a community, have resulted, at least in part, in such a safe place? It may seem a stretch but according to Berkeley researchers, health researchers, and Oxford researchers (to name a few!), they have shown singing synchronizes heart beats, that it produces oxytocin-the same hormone that bonds a mother to a child or released during sex between two partners, and dopamine-the hormone that gives us pleasure and happiness. It bonds people together-as a community-and research shows that nothing brings people closer together than singing! Why it's such a powerful tool for us development practitioners! Could it be Georgians feel an obligation to be kind toward one another, to follow the Golden Rule, because it's a fellow human that they've sung with? Is it perhaps so safe because of their singing?

Repeatedly, during the conference, Georgians explained how fascinated they were by us doing music for social goals (the simplest definition of community music) and how they could bring that idea to Georgia. How they could develop curriculum, have social outcomes, etc. While this is all fine and dandy, I'd like to question if Georgians actually are the ones being more proactive? That singing for the sake of singing has resulted in not needing community music programs because of its natural ability to unite, to strengthen, to build camaraderie? What social outcome would they want to achieve? Most of the outcomes our programs achieve have already been achieved in Georgia. We want to keep kids off the streets, we want to lower x rate, we want to bring different communities together, already done in Georgia!

Georgians break into song without taking pitch, ever. They just sing three part harmonies in tune. After seeing elementary-aged youth do this, despite being the only one on a part, or being one on a part against 19 others on another (stay tuned for video!),  I asked them, how do you teach this? They just laughed and told me Georgians learn this in the birth canal, it's part of their blood. I suppose it's no different than most Latinx being able to dance-it's part of their DNA.

After a 2.5 hour choir rehearsal with the Georgian maestro telling us to do this, that, and the other thing, I realized how exhausting this type of singing was! And yet, they do it at all times of day-even in the bars at 2 am or walking home at 4 am! Georgian drinking songs are actually quite sacred with references to wine and eternity! Georgia is also the birthplace of wine and one of the oldest Christian nations. The toasting tradition called tamadá, also has Christian roots. I saw churches from the 13th century! And Georgia is known for their hospitality. If you think of the origins of singing, whether from an evolutionary perspective or the church, it brought people together, to connect, and express feelings of gratitude, glory, laud, and honor, and perhaps could be the activity on the logic model that resulted in these outcomes, even if they were unintended.

I still am curious how a song is taught in the Georgian classroom, but until then, I'd like to suggest that we follow their lead! Once again, other countries have so much to teach us! Let's have our babies learn singing in their birth canal and perhaps, just maybe, we'd have a more peaceful and connected world.

On another note, I am proud to say my research will be published in the proceedings of the ISME conference :) Yahoo! #zarathescholar

A Heart Massage

That is how a new friend described Ialoni, the female Georgian choir that sang last night (see my Facebook for a video or go to their website. I think the thing that was most contrasting to what I am used to hearing in polyphonic music was the "oomph" behind the women's voices, particularly the lowest altos who were droning on a D5 (that's VERY low!). The warrior nature of their sound was exquisite and very chesty. This made me think of how outside classical Western music, we're not told to use our head voice. Someone introduced the term "natural voice pedagogue" to me yesterday. All my life I have been a chameleon, including as a musician. How the conductor wants me to sound, wants us to blend, etc. etc. It's come to a point where I don't know which sound I'm supposed to be producing when it is my choice (not all music is empowering-the opposite has been true!) 

Anyway, I digress, to see these women sing with their beautiful natural voices and still receive a standing ovation at the end because they shared their unique and beautiful gift, THAT was empowering. And then they still had some BEAUTIFUL acapella more choral sounding pieces, but that was just one color on their palette. Not to mention the stories that accompanied these songs. The one on my Facebook is about a baby dying and wow the dancing, the symbolism, the sound, everything so gorgeous. 

So often, choral educators use just the primary colors, or a monotone color. What I saw last night was a full palette with clear primary colors as roots, but by the end of the 45 min presentation they had all used their whole palette. What if we broke out of that mold? Painters in Buenos Aires have developed a very trendy style using just neon colors! What if we challenged ourselves to do the equivalent as vocalists, as musicians, as artists? Sure, classical singing has its time and place, but it doesn't have to dominate. I am going to strive to not make it a monotonous color on my palette. I am embracing my inner Georgian and using my natural voice as my primary color--how it should be mixed, I'm still working on that, thanks Dr. Michaels!

This fearless, strong woman presence was also noted in the large Kartlis Deda Mother statue, think the giant Jesus Christ in Rio, but of a woman with a sword in one hand and a glass of wine in the other. She symbolizes the Georgian national character: in her left hand she holds a bowl of wine to greet those who come as friends, and in her right hand is a sword for those who come as enemies. Strong, but still knows how to celebrate, love, and have a good time. This is what we need more of in the world. Keep our armor shells, because without them we'll wittle away with all the political divisiveness going on and we certainly need to continue to fight the good fight, but not without keeping a glass of wine in the other, to cherish life every day and remember to befriend. 

This statue especially had meaning after I had accompanied two Georgians to dinner prior and we went through the Georgian toast process. Essentially, you can make a toast to anything: trees, napkins, women, the potential President, the list goes on. Someone starts the toast and everyone goes around and says something about the topic at hand-and then you drink half the glass of wine and continue to repour until the jug is gone. Ours was intermingled with intense debate, but the nature of it was there. It happened over several hours so I had no problem climbing the hill to the monastery and aforementioned statue after, don't worry :) To drink with this amount of intention and truly cherish everything-from trees to napkins is a lovely practice I hope to carry forth. So here's to serif font that helps you read this and to the beautiful Georgian people who have already taught me so much in 72 hours! Not to mention the actual songs I'm bringing back with me. What are you toasting today?

Here's to Day 2. And no more sleepless nights.

Art cafes and Minivans

Well I've now been here 72 hours and here was my daytrip adventure to Gori.

After an hour minivan ride learning Georgia has no road rules (!!!), I arrived in the town of Gori quite ready for lunch. I used maps me to find a read art cafe. Intrigued I walked there and could not think of a better way to pass the hottest time of day! The grandma made me a special Georgian soup, an iced coffee that tastes like a frappe, and I had my first Georgian salad-cucumber and tomatoes w nuts. I escaped bread-a feat here! Then she turned off the American music and came in very proudly and put on Georgian music. And now I’m reading in the very appropriately named Read Art cafe in ironically Stalin’s birthplace. His museum wasn't much if you don't read Russian-appropriate I suppose. 

But the minivan ride back showed the Georgian people's true character. After getting dropped off at the train station when there was no train in sight, I boarded a minivan bus to go to the minivan marutshka terminal. The van was full except for a fold-up seat, whose seat back went maybe halfway up my back and whose seat cushion was non-existent, essentially it was a rock, for an hour. But no imaginary third lane passings like on the way here or tailgating semis that I swear we were going to hit(I already have already been sideswiped-thank you very much!). And then the girl next to me starts speaking to me in Georgian and I turn to her and she is pinching her nose, her hands covered in blood. She had a bloody nose. Usually, I see someone hand someone a kleenex and the route continues, but in Georgia, you pull over to the side of these crazy highways and the driver and 3-4 women get out offering kleenex, consoling her, making sure the bloody nose is not a life or death situation.

I felt so helpless not being able to say anything, which made me realize this is the first time in 2.5 years I haven't been in a country where I can speak the language (thanks Latin America) and it's been since the beginning of Tanzania in 2010 when I couldn't understand anything because even in Thailand there was always someone who spoke English! But here they talk to you as if you speak fluently. Google translate has certainly been our friend because not only is it a new language, but another alphabet-cyrillic! 

Good thing there are sulfur baths to wash away all your worries (and dead skin!).