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What Making Music at First Parish Meant to Me
When Dorothy asked me to write an article of roughly the above title for "The Spire", naturally I asked her who else was doing this, if anyone. After all, if I were the only one doing it, then who is to say that, at some point in the future, I wouldn't be branded a "heretic" and burned at the stake? That kind of stuff has happened in churches, you know! But she assured me that other people were undertaking (whoa-morbid word!) this enterprise as well, and that it would be a monthly feature in "The Spire". And so I was reassured: for at heart I am a coward, and thus need to hide among numbers of other people who will stick their necks out before I do. So I asked her whom they had lined up so far to do such neck-sticking. She replied with a handful of names, all of whom belonged to a certain musical organization in the church. This appealed to me as an excellent way of turning a worn-out cliché on its head - that is: the choir preaching to everyone else.
The next question I asked Dorothy was how blunt could I be? After all, this is a church newsletter, and churches tend to be very finicky with people fooling around with their beliefs (example: writing in a Catholic newsletter that you don't believe in extreme unction – not done!). But she assured me that there were no fetters to be applied to my discourse; that I could, if I wanted, ride rough-shod over every civilized belief. I probed further. Could I make a case for bestiality, cannibalism, or other things of that ilk? I must admit that Dorothy blanched a bit at this; but her only real concern was what it had to do with music at First Parish. I haven't the foggiest idea, but I do assure you all that I would be happy to investigate such connections whenever I have a spare moment or two.
So I can be blunt. And I am going to throw out a zinger here about me and my music at First Parish that no one at the church suspected of me. Here it is: I was in it for the money. The dough. The take. My mother had told me that I could not support a wife and two kids as a musician.
"Mom," I protested, "I'm only twelve years old."
But now, there I was, sitting at an overgrown calliope every Sunday, shooting out musical notes – and they would come back as gold-plated doubloons.
Is there any other reason to make music?
- Theo May
First Parish organist, 1978 - 1996
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