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A year ago from yesterday, I left for Germany to start what I would say was one of the most important trip's I've ever taken in my life. I know it's pretty standard to say that something was a life changing experience, but that doesn't make it any less true.
The thing about this trip is that the 50 other people that went on it have all gone out and talked about why it was so important to them. Most of these people have said things that I've felt better than I could have said them, and I don't like to be redundant. But I guess it never hurts to restate things that matter.
Where do I even start? Three weeks is a really long period of time to spend away from home traveling in a group. There's a lot of things that happen in three weeks, little things that don't seem to make much of a difference at the time but create some kind of mosaic of experiences. I think if I tried to capture those moments in chronological order, I would have to dedicate an extra month of blogging just to write about it.
So I sat down (maybe a year too late) and tried to mentally boil it down to the essence of why this trip was so amazing and why even a year later I'm still collecting my thoughts on it. Did it really change my life? Was I a different, and better person because of it? I think the answer is kind of yes and no.
No, I'm not a different person. If anything, I came back from Europe as a more...me version of myself. If you know what I'm trying to say. I didn't decide to make any major lifestyle changes and I still had a pretty similar group of friends. I didn't feel like I couldn't relate to anyone who hadn't shared the experience.
I don't think Europe changed me. I think it was...enriching? Does that sound like super pretentious?? See...I STILL can't wrap my brain around this thing and it's been a WHOLE YEAR.
The things I think I will remember most about Europe, like the BIG PICTURE things that I will remember were 1.) the music and 2.) connecting with people. And those two things were hand in hand the whole time.
We spent three weeks touring, and rehearsing, and singing almost every day. I think doing something that intensely for that long has to raise your level of musicianship at least a little bit, and for me I think it made a huge difference. The music that we performed was on a level that I had never personally reached, and I don't think I had ever pushed myself that hard musically until the few months leading up to the trip and ESPECIALLY during the trip. That was the one thing I felt confident enough to talk about with the group, the fact that WOW. I learned ALL OF THAT RIDICULOUS MUSIC. I learned a lot about myself as a musician, and I learned a lot about other people through the music. Which is why I think it goes hand and hand with connecting to other people.
When I was fifteen years old, I did a foreign exchange program through my high school Spanish department, and I spent three weeks in Spain with about thirteen other students. I didn't connect with a single one of them. I spent the whole three weeks trying to eat my way out of loneliness, and trying to pretend that I was at least kind of friends with the other people on the trip. Needless to say, I could not tell you what a single person who went on that trip is doing today. This time around, it was way different.
We spent the first two weeks and a half weeks of our tour preparing for competition, and like I said, the music that we performed was more complicated than anything I had ever done before. I don't think it's possible for anyone to learn music like that unless they really really want to do well. So knowing that I shared that level of motivation with 47 other people was something I had never experienced, and it's slightly overwhelming. I had never spent more than two hours of rehearsal at a time with some of these people, and suddenly we were holding hands and singing and crying? Amazing. And yeah, some of the people I have not kept in touch with (although Facebook allows me too "keep up" with their lives...does that count?), but some of these people are now close friends that I never would have had otherwise.
What was even more amazing was the response we got from some of our European audiences. We sang in three different countries: Germany, Greece, and Hungary. Different languages, different audiences, but somehow the same experience across all three. Most of our concerts were in churches, where there are no spotlights and you can see right into the faces of your audience. On occasion you catch glimpses of their reactions, and how they are connecting to the music. The most beautiful thing is that you could be singing in any language, but somehow everyone realizes what you are singing about. We had found a way to communicate across one of the biggest barriers of communication. Music has a way of doing that, and that was something that I knew was true but had never experienced firsthand. Having the experience definitely changed my own philosophy about sharing music, which is something we talk a lot about in my music education major. I walked away from this trip with a stronger sense of YES. THIS IS WHERE I WANT TO BE. MUSIC IS WHERE I WANT TO BE AND THIS IS WHAT I WANT TO DO. I don't know if I talk about that too much on this blog, but now I have and now you know.
WHEW. That was tough! Hopefully I was able to write a semi-coherent post?
Chorale people reading this, I would love to read some of your thoughts on this trip (especially people I haven't heard from in a while!). And anyone else, I would also love to hear about some of your life-changing experiences in the comments!
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This is a lovely post, Mel! I'm surprised to hear that you had such a rough time of it in Spain. My brief time in Spain was very much like your Chorale trip -- I learned a lot about what I was capable of, and I learned the joy of sharing important parts of my personality with others, even with people who didn't speak the same language as me. I'm glad your Chorale trip was able to give you that experience :D
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