From the strange summer of 2009, a short piece on music and life:

I have developed a raging crush on someone, and I am unable to communicate with him in any sort of normal, human way. This is how it goes every time I see him:

Man: Hi, Sofia, how was—

Me: I LIKE LINOLEUM!

Man: …errr…

Me: IT’S MADE FROM FLAX!

Man: …I have to go talk with my friend now.

The good thing is that I am so awkward, and it makes both of us so uncomfortable, that I’m starting to find it funny. In fact, yesterday evening, at the end of a performance I went to, I said to him, “Hey, I was thinking, that since every time I see you, I say something awkward, we could just practice, and get it out of the way at the beginning.” He laughed.

Here’s my theory of harmony singing: if I’m singing along to a song I don’t know, I have to make my best guess about where the melody is going, and harmonize to that. If my guess turns out to be right, my harmony sounds pretty with the melody. If my guess turns out to be dissonant to the melody, then I’m singing a passing tone, on the way to the “right” note.

Passing tones are those little notes in a song where the harmonies sound a bit dissonant — it makes you feel tense to hear it, and you feel a need to resolve it. And, when the harmony goes back to sounding pretty, you feel this great sense of relief and beauty.

So maybe life is the same way. It’s either “right”, or it’s a passing tone. And, passing tones are “right,” too — in fact, some of the most exquisite moments in music that I’ve sung have been the passing tones. And both kinds of harmonies resolve at the end.

So maybe I can relax a little.