9) Collective Voices

A couple weeks ago I went to see the Los Angeles Master Chorale at the Walt Disney Concert Hall. It's a gorgeous venue with equally amazing accoustics. The program was very avant garde (a little too much for my tastes) with only a handful of soloists singing a majority of the time. This created a stark contrast to the parts when the whole choir stood up and sang. Whenever their thunderous voices erupted together in song, a lump immediately jumped to my throat. I wrote it off as a general appreciation for music, enhanced by the grandeur of my surroundings.

Then last week I was at the gym before work, running on a treadmill placed conveniently in front of several TVs. One is always devoted to music videos à la MTV circa the 80s. About halfway through my simulated forest trail run, 30 Seconds to Mars' Kings and Queens video came on. Its basic concept is a group of colorful fixie lovers on a critical mass bike ride through empty city streets. At about 4:47 the riders stream onto the Santa Monica Pier, their lights winking in time to the neons of the famous Ferris wheel. At 5:08, the voices of many sing a series of "ooooh-oooohs" to close out the video. To my surprise, I was overwhelmed by the same lump-in-throat, about to cry feeling. On a treadmill. Surrounded by sweaty people.

I got to thinking about collective voices, and the emotional tug it has on us. Whether they make us cry (ok, I didn't actually cry), smile (T-Mobile's Hey Jude Sing-a-Long above), or feel inspired (Michael Jackson's We are the World), collective voices stir something within us.

It's usually the na-na's and the oh-oh's that are delegated to the sea of voices. The easy parts that everyone can sing along to. In fact, they are made for the crowd. It would sound unimpressive if one Beatle soloed the, "naaaaaaa, na, na, na-na-na-naaaaa" section in Hey Jude. Parts like that require the fullness of many voices in order to be impactful.

This ease of entry allows for the maximum number of participants, who are now part of something bigger than their individual selves. When you listen to collective singing, you can never distinguish one voice from another. I suspect that part of the emotional lever is this very loss of individuality. It's a selfless contribution of voice to a greater whole. When we hear collective voices and witness the whole, a sense of unity and humanity swells.