The first sound you hear...

Do you remember the first music you heard? A lot has been made of the so-called "Mozart Effect", the popularization of intense research into the effect of music on the brain. Every now and then a new or expectant parent will ask my advice on playing music as part of the environment of the baby. They want to give their child a head-start, and are trying to be the best parents they can be.

I always tell them the same thing. It is based on my own early childhood music experiences, and my experiences as a young parent. I tell them to sing with their child. I tell them to teach their children lots of songs, and sing them together. They frequently give a dismayed disclaimer about their own singing voice. I tell them to improvise, and that the sound of their voice is the most important sound in their child's life, and that their child is not a music critic. And I tell them about my father's whistling.

I grew up 50 years ago, and my parents had been children of the Great Depression, raised in the share-cropping world of the rural south. In a path that can only be viewed as providential, they were both the first in their families to attend college, and they both studied education. I was raised with a mixture of rural family wisdom and the educational thinking of a world full of scientific conquest, baby boomer upward mobility, and the ubiquitous advice of Dr. Spock. For all the progress that was part of that time in America, it would be 30 years before the research that led to the term "Mozart Effect" would be widely disseminated. But there is no doubt that I remember the first music I heard, and that it had a life-long impact on me.

My father was known in our community as a professor and college administrator. He was also known for his community and church involvement. But to those who knew him well, he was especially known as a world-class whistler. If you woke up in our house, your first waking awareness was likely the sound of a hymn from my father's youth being whistled. If you drove by while we were in the yard, you would realize how far the sound of a well-executed whistle traveled. There were hymns, Christmas Carols and the occasional popular song. I particularly remember "Softly and Tenderly Jesus Is Calling."

When she was young my mother had an illness that resulted in pain in her vocal chords, so she was unable to sing very much. My father's whistling became the sound track of their parental nurturing. My childhood memories include all the usual things: laughter, vacations, meals, play, school. And they all come with accompaniment, pure and melodic, signifying the close presence and care of my parents.

My point in relating this version of childhood is not to point to my family as some sort of prototype of nurture. I'm sure your memories include similar characteristics. Rather, I want to express that the music that accompanies parental nurture is more important for its interweaving in the most basic of childhood experiences than for its guarantee of encouraging childhood ingenuity. In short, forget trying to give your child an intellectual head start until you have met your child's more immediate and important need, the need for your loving presence. There is plenty of time for children to grow intellectually, but precious little time for sitting on laps and riding in cars singing together, or falling asleep to the reassuring sound of a familiar whistle. Gentle singing says more than gentle speaking, and the effect of music on the brain pales in comparison to the affect of musical nurture on the whole child.

A couple of years ago my father had to have two heart valves replaced. He went through a very difficult recovery after it was discovered that the first attempt at replacing the valves had failed, and several more hospitalizations and another open-heart surgery were eventually required before he could begin getting back to normal. My brothers and I tried to stay with my mother and help as much as possible, and one morning after Dad had returned home we turned to one another with a relieved recognition. After months of listening for his labored breathing, we heard a more familiar sound coming from his bedroom, and we knew with decades of assurance that he would be alright. The sound we heard was a clear and melodic whistle, a familiar rendition of "Softly and Tenderly Jesus Is Calling."

No carefully chosen Mozart excerpt could have meant to us what that gospel hymn meant. It meant the same thing it had always meant, "Dad is close by, family is home, and everything is going to be fine."

and a little child shall lead them

It is 6:00 AM, so I've been awake several hours. I'm adjusting to being back in Alabama after bathing in the music of Vienna for the last couple of weeks. I have been Assistant Artistic Director for the International Haydn Festival 2009, where we presented twelve concerts over five days in four different venues, including the Musikverein and the Konzerthaus. A roster of great musicians participated, including Rodney Wynkoop and his choral forces from Duke University, Greg Hobbs and singers from Highland Park Presbyterian Church in Dallas, and instrumentalists from the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The repertoire of the festival included masses and instrumental music by Franz Josef Haydn, who died 200 years ago. But it also included three international premieres, a variety of other music, and the Mozart "Requiem", which was performed at Haydn's memorial service in June of 1809.

With so many great musicians performing such great repertoire, it might surprise you to know that my greatest musical memory comes from a group of boys and young men from Atlanta. The storied Atlanta Boy Choir performed in the festival, adding another successful international tour to their long history of outstanding musicianship.

On July 2, in Vienna's famed Musikverein, conductor David White led the Atlanta singers in a program that received ovation after ovation from the savvy Vienna audience, filling the silences between the songs and trying to give some small reward to the young but consummate musicians.

Did I mention that this was happening in Vienna? The ground zero of Boy Choirs? One might think that this audience would greet another Boy Choir with skepticism. But it only took four descending tones, the same tones used by Tchaikovsky to give the world his great piano concerto; the same tones Van Cliburn then played in Moscow to give musical warmth to the cold war. Those tones: sol, mi, re, do; now sung by a small boy on stage left, beginning Ralph Vaughan Williams' setting of the scriptural invitation to the Lord's table, "O taste and see...". Now it was an invitation to join these young singers for a few minutes while they celebrated all that is possible when fine art meets fine artists. "O taste and see how gracious the Lord is."

David White is a good friend, and he comes from a family of great musicians. We usually see one another at choral conventions, and once our conversation reaches the end of our family updates, we tend to resume a discussion of the generally low expectations of musical understanding and performance that people express toward children. I believe, and David's choir offers proof, that young singers are extraordinarily capable. In the 1000-year history of choral music, it is a phenomenon of the last 200 years that women would take the places of boys in the soprano and alto sections. Our greatest choral music was written for just these kinds of voices.

I often see and hear examples of the kind of well-meaning music education that espouses ideas like, "We must be careful with young singers, preserving their fragile voices and self-images by keeping things light and fun." I appreciate anyone whose motivation is the best interests of children. But I stood at the backstage door as these young men from Atlanta left the stage. Having worked very hard for a year, only to receive these great ovations from the world's most informed audience, their self-images couldn't have been better. And David's careful and expert approach to vocal technique left their voices anything but fragile. They turned around and sang as part of a large festival chorus in Haydn's "Heilgmesse," and were still giving their all 45 minutes later.

While the International Haydn Festival was going on, our few English-language television channels were all glued to coverage of the death of Michael Jackson. People my age remember when he burst onto the scene as a tiny boy, and continued to captivate people through most of his 50 years with unique musical performances. Now that his memorials are subsiding, I want to celebrate the consummate musicianship of another group of young boys, and the hard work that brought them to a point of international triumph. They are unlikely to grow up to the kind of fame that ensures wild eccentricities, and that is fueled by record sales. They will become teachers and lawyers and fathers and scoutmasters. But they deserve to be celebrated as artists while they are still in their boyhood, for they succeeded in the attainment of the artist's fondest goal. They prepared and performed the greatest art, and their audience heard and understood.

My favorite moment of their performance came in the presentation of Viennese composer Anton Bruckner's piece "Os Justi." Here are it's words in English translation (with a pertinent edit), a fitting benediction:

The mouth of the righteous utters wisdom,
and his tongue speaks (sings?) what is just.
The law of his God is in his heart;
and his feet do not falter. Alleluia.