Home is where the tonic is
- February 19, 2013
- By Dale McGowan
- In music
3
I’ve had a few requests to go back in time, to my previous life. Why not?
Before I was a writer, I was a musician, including 15 years as a music professor. I conducted a college orchestra, composed and arranged music, and taught music history and music theory. Once in a while someone will ask if I miss it. I really don’t. I enjoyed it, then had enough.
There’s one exception: I never tired of thinking and talking about music, especially how it does what it does. I do miss that. It’s like magic, the fact that pitches arranged through time and bumping and grinding against each other can make me feel happy or sad, scared or triumphant. Except it’s not magic. I know how it works.
I’d ask my theory students to bring in CDs of music they liked, and we’d start each class by listening to that for a minute or two. I’d ask what was going on in the music, what was making the emotion happen. For the first few days of the year, the freshmen would point to the lyrics, every time. I weaned them off of that by week two. Lyrics are window dressing. Good lyrics can enhance the emotion, but they’re almost never the root of it. Take the saddest song you know, put polka music under the words, and watch what happens to the emotion. Elton John broke the mold on this technique when he takes these lyrics…
I’m getting bored being part of mankind
There’s not a lot to do no more
This race is a waste of time
People rushing everywhere, swarming ’round like flies
Think I’ll buy a .44
Give ’em all a surpriseThink I’m gonna kill myself
…and puts them over an upbeat honky-tonk piano.
But take a heartbreaking song, keep the music the same and change the lyrics to la la la… and most of the time it’ll still break your heart.
A lot of the emotion in music comes from the skillful use of dissonance and consonance, tension and release. But the best composers also know how to toy with one of our most deep-seated narratives — the quest for home.
It’s a quest that’s laced into every human culture. Think of Odysseus wandering the Mediterranean in search of Ithaca, the children of Israel in search of the land of milk and honey, even the idea of humanity working its way back to Eden.
Films that aren’t beating the dead horse of unrequited love often return to the story of the search for, or return to, or loss of, home. Think of Gone with the Wind, The Trip to Bountiful, Apollo 13, Cast Away, all three Toy Story films (especially 2), Planet of the Apes…. And the two films that elevated home-lust to a fine art –- The Wizard of Oz and E.T.
Music mines the same ground. Composers establish the idea of home, then take you away and tempt you with the promise of return, measure by measure, phrase by phrase, and over the course of a full composition.
Music has several ways to establish an emotional home. The tonic pitch (or keynote) is one of them, and the harmony (or chord) built on that note is another. If you’re in the key of F, then F is home. Sing with me:
Hap-py Birth-day to you
Hap-py Birth-day to you
Hap-py Birth-day dear Sally
Hap-py Birth-day to…
Aack. Unsettling, isn’t it? And not just because a word is missing. It’s unresolved because the missing last note is the tonic, the arrival. It’s home:
yooooou!
Two notes in the scale are most important: the tonic, which is home, and the dominant, which is a big neon arrow pointing to home. In “Amazing Grace,” the first two notes are dominant and tonic, respectively:
A-ma-(zing grace)…
See how the first pitch points to the second, and how the second feels like home, the center of the tonal universe? There’s a cool reason for that I won’t get into now. But you can feel it, can’t you? First there’s the promise of home, then the promise is fulfilled. That’s grace for you.
If I were playing “Amazing Grace” on the piano, I’d be playing chords, and most of the chords would be the tonic chord, built on that tonic pitch, and the dominant chord, built on the dominant pitch. If the key is F, the tonic chord is F-A-C, and the dominant chord is C-E-G. So now there are two ways to promise home, and two ways to be home: the melody and the harmony. And composers can do wonders by promising home, then fulfilling, delaying, or denying that promise, or fulfilling it in the melody but denying it in the harmony, and on and on.
No surprise that Phillip Phillips’ song “Home” plays with the idea of home. In the second verse, for example (“Settle down, it’ll all be clear”), the melody floats up above the tonic while the harmony is on the tonic. But when the melody drops down to the tonic home (“trouble it might drag you DOWN”), the harmony moves away from home. It’s cat and mouse. Melody and harmony don’t both find home at the same time until a strong downbeat on…what word?
I’m gonna make this place your HOME.
Not a coincidence.
There’s a moment in Tim Minchin’s “White Wine in the Sun” that always makes me choke up. Yes, the lyrics are wonderful, but it’s the way he underpins them musically that closes the deal. This song is about home too, and being away from it, and coming back — perfect for this device. The part that always gets me is, “I’ll be seeing my dad, my brother and sisters, my gran and my mum.” Start around 1:25 and listen for about 20 seconds:
The melody on “gran and my mum” is a straight walk home in the melody — Bb-A-G-F. He could have gone home in the harmony at the same time, and it looks for a while like he will. “My brother and sisters” is all dominant, pointing straight to home. If he’d gone home to the tonic harmony on “mum”, it would have sounded like this:
But he didn’t do that…because that would suck. Instead, he did something nuanced and wonderful:
It’s called a secondary dominant, a kind of momentary harmonic trap door into another key. You think he’s headed for home (F), which is of course the whole message of the song. The melody does head for home (Bb-A-G-F, “gran and my mum”), but the harmony under it sidesteps through A major to d minor. The result is an unfulfilled yearning for home. It also happens every time he says “me and your mum” and “make you feel safe in this world.”
It’s made even more effective because he stretches the measure by a beat each time he says “me and your mum.” Then, at 5:20-5:26, “your brothers and sisters, your aunts and your uncles, your grandparents, cousins” is one long, beautiful, building phrase extension on the dominant, all pointing toward home (F), then resolving home in the melody but again, not in the harmony on “me and your mum (5:27-5:30) will be waiting for you in the sun.” And I cry.
Knowing why it works doesn’t diminish the impact a bit. It just adds a deep sense of wonder over what music can do.
I’ll throw one of these into the mix once in a while. I do miss it.
Contradicting the universe
One of the hardest things about being human is realizing that the universe couldn’t possibly care less than it does whether you are happy or safe, or fulfilled, or even alive. And most of the pieces of the universe all around us — the ones shaped like us — only rise slightly above that level of zero concern. Most of the time, I’m just an obstacle between them and the front of the checkout line at Kroger. On most days, if I’m honest, they’re usually about the same to me.
The loneliness and isolation of being a feeling thing in an uncaring universe can be devastating. There was a time when I felt it intensely for several years running. It helped me understand why people are drawn to the idea of a loving God, an insight I’ve never forgotten. It solves not just death, but that crushing universal indifference.
If you’ve ever been there, then had someone smile at you or say something kind, you probably remember the momentary realization that at least some small piece of the universe was not indifferent to you. You probably remember it washing over you like a warm bath. I sure do. If you’ve never felt it, take my word, holy cow. I’m sure it saves lives.
I haven’t felt that terrible isolation or those brief respites in about 24 years, ever since one particular piece of the universe put me at the center of her concern and let me return the favor.
So there’s my definition of love for Valentine’s Day. It’s a contradiction of the universe.
NEXT!
I’m thrilled to announce that I’ve reached a deal for my next book with the folks who did Parenting Beyond Belief and Raising Freethinkers — AMACOM Books in New York. The topic is marriage and parenting between religious and nonreligious partners. No title yet, and I hate even the working titles I’ve come up with. (More on that soon.)
I’ve been hoping to get this done for about three years now, but other projects kept butting in. Many of the most common questions I get from secular parents are about issues around this kind of mixed marriage. Though there are several books on marriages between partners of two different religions — including half a dozen titles on Jewish-Christian intermarriage alone — there’s nothing for the biggest belief gap of all. And since there are at least five times as many nonreligious people in the U.S. as Jewish, we’re talking about a much larger population, one that’s totally unserved.
The issues are also different when instead of two religious traditions, you’re blending natural and supernatural worldviews. Existing interfaith marriage books aren’t all that helpful with this different set of questions.
This is a complex project that will take all year. Since detailed data are sparse for the topic, I’ll be conducting a large-scale survey sometime in March or April, as well as a series of interviews with mixed couples.
Like the Dummies book, I’ll be blogging the process and asking questions along the way — just watch for posts with the “mixed marriage” tag. Thanks in advance for your help!
Q&A: Lean on me
(Here’s the first in my new occasional Q&A series. Click Ask a Question in the sidebar to submit your own question.)
Q: I saw a note on Pinterest recently that really grabbed me, and I’ve not been able to shake it. It was a list of suggestions for parents. One of the entries was “give your children something to believe in – because there will come a time when they are alone and scared or sad, and they’re going to need something to believe in.”
My husband and I are, at the least, agnostic….But I do want to know that if something really shakes the lives of my children, they will have some way of comforting themselves, some way of (eventually) coming to know that everything will be all right. How is this accomplished?
A: How I love this question. It cuts right to the core of the ultimate reprieve that religion offers from fear and vulnerability. Life may be incredibly hard and unfair at times, but believing that Someone Somewhere who is all-powerful and all-good has a handle on things and will see to it that justice prevails in the end… I can easily see how that idea can make life bearable, especially for those who are in much closer touch with the raw human condition than I am.
It brings to mind the Russell quote I’ve written about before: “Ever since puberty I have believed in the value of two things: kindness and clear thinking….When I felt triumphant I believed most in clear thinking, and in the opposite mood I believed most in kindness.” And there’s the key to the question. If I can’t offer them the kindness of God to lean on, what can I give my kids to help them through the inevitable times they will feel the opposite of triumphant?
You may have heard the Christian acronym J-O-Y, which stands for “Jesus, then Others, then Yourself” — the supposed formula for true happiness. Take away Jesus and you have the real-world resources I hope to build in my kids: the support of other people, and a strong self-concept.
Kids need to develop the ability to connect emotionally and meaningfully with others, and that’s a skill that starts at home when they are young. You care for your child and encourage their natural empathy for others. They become the kind of people who attract others to them in mutually supportive relationships.
As they get older, peers overtake family as the leaning posts. It’s no coincidence that teenagers often become obsessively centered on their peer group for identity and support as they are pulled through a period of rapid change, and that they focus more on those who are going through the same transition than on the all-too-familiar family they are transitioning away from.
They’ll also make connections based on interests and passions. In addition to a really tight group of friends, my daughter Erin (15) is passionately involved in photography, volunteering, volleyball, animal rescue, and acting. She’s in specific clubs that connect her to others with the same interests, and if those interests continue, she can continue to be connected to those larger passion communities throughout her life.
Those interests won’t all continue, of course, nor will all of her current friendships. Some will fall away as she grows older and her circumstances change, but she’ll retain the ability to connect. It’s not a static belief she needs, but that ability, that skill. Those mutually supportive connections with other human beings, connections she has built herself, will get her through hard times, as well as the strong self-concept on which those relationships are based.
And, when she’s 21 or 31, if we’ve built the right kinds of connections between us and earned it ourselves, her family will be that ultimate connection she can always lean on. To paraphrase Tim Minchin, we are the people who’ll make her feel safe in this world.
But I’m not headed into White Wine in the Sun here. There’s another song that captures this humanistic idea of people caring for each other better than any other.
R&B legend Bill Withers wrote it after he moved to LA in the lates 1960s following a stint in the Navy. He was really alone for the first time in his life, feeling vulnerable, away from the personal connections that had made him feel safe growing up in a small coal mining town in West Virginia. He sat down and wrote one of the great songs of all time about what he was missing. Not a particular belief, not God, but somebody to lean on. And unlike God, that human relationship can be mutual — which to my mind is SO much more satisfying and meaningful.
The born-again blog
I’m back, and there’s a new plan! — Jesus Christ
I launched this blog in March 2007 with an announcement about the upcoming release of Parenting Beyond Belief. I was 44, and my kids were 5, 9, and 11. We were living in Minnesota, getting ready to move to Atlanta. I’d quit my job as a professor at a Catholic college the previous year and was scraping by with a few freelance writing clients. For better and worse, I had time and some ideas that I hadn’t already said.
Half a million words later, a lot has changed. I’m turning 50 next month. My kids are 11, 15, and 17. I’m writing books pretty much continuously and running a charitable foundation, and I do a decent amount of traveling and speaking. I’m getting an unfair amount of fun and satisfaction out of all this stuff, but it means (obviously) I sometimes drop the blog and can’t find it in the leaves.
Busyness is only part of the problem. Now that I’m writing most of the day, I honestly get tired of my own voice, and I just can’t sit down and force out a blog post — at least not one worth reading. I find I can write about 2,000 good words a day. The next 500 are words, sure enough, but they mostly lay there, grinning up at me as they wallow in their own filth.
Then starting with #2501, every damn word makes me want to strangle myself with my own typewriter ribbon. Which is much harder than it used to be.
The pile of new topics and ideas was also enormous in the beginning. But after 600+ posts, I was starting to do donuts in the parking lot, which feels self-indulgent. The navel-gazing aspect of blogging has always made me a little nauseous (he blogged), but as long as I felt I had fresh things to say, I could handle it.
Even if I can’t manage new posts too often anymore, I’m sometimes glad to find that I still have this window to stand naked in when I need to. Like last year, when I wrote Atheism for Dummies. You all were incredibly helpful in grappling with some of those questions, which is why you get a collective shout in the Acknowledgements.
So here’s the new plan. In addition to the very occasional freestanding new post, the blog will now have three faces:
1. Book blog
When I’m working on a book, I’ll blog that process in short bursts, asking for your help when I need it. (There appears to be a new project coming, btw — stand by for news.)
2. Greatest hits
A lot of my old posts expand on ideas in my books, and I think about a third of them are worth rerunning, especially for those who haven’t read all 500,000 words quite yet. I’ll bring some of my favorites back.
3. Q&A
I get a steady stream of email questions, usually but not always about secular parenting. Instead of always answering offline, I’d like to invite y’all to ask questions or suggest topics using the new Ask a Question form in the sidebar. I won’t be able to answer them all, but I’ll pick a few and answer on the blog. Sky’s the limit on this one. Ask me anything.
Hopefully this will keep it fresh. Thanks for reading!
Just do it?
(First appeared May 13, 2010)
“My heart goes out to the man…who, when given a letter for Garcia, quietly takes the missive, without asking any idiotic questions, and with no lurking intention of chucking it into the nearest sewer, or of doing aught else but deliver it… ”
from A Message to Garcia by Elbert Hubbard
We — and by “we” I mean we humans, we trousered apes — love us some unquestioning obedience.
The passage above is from a modern version of the unquestioning hero — A Message to Garcia. Published in 1899, this essay tells the story of Andrew Summers Rowan, an American military officer who took a difficult order in the run-up to the Spanish-American War and carried it out without asking (as the author put it) “any idiotic questions.” The order: Deliver a message from President William McKinley to rebel leader Calixto Garcia enlisting Garcia’s help against the Spanish. Rowan did so, impressing posterity in a way that probably surprised even him.
Never mind that the Spanish-American War is seen by the consensus of historians as one of the more shameful and cynical military adventures in U.S. history — quite an achievement if you think of the competition. The value of the story doesn’t depend much on the setting. I’m not even mostly interested in Rowan’s act (though Rowan, writing years later, was plenty impressed with himself). I’m interested in what our drooling admiration of the unquestioning obedience in the story says about us.
“No man, who has endeavored to carry out an enterprise where many hands were needed, but has been well nigh appalled at times by the imbecility of the average man–the inability or unwillingness to concentrate on a thing and do it,” Hubbard says in his essay. Among the questions that count as “idiotic” to Hubbard is any attempt to clarify an assignment. The greatest felony, though, is asking why.
In the Foreword to a later edition of the essay, Hubbard recounts with astonished glee the instant demand for copies in the millions. “A copy of the booklet [was] given to every railroad employee in Russia,” he says, as well as every Russian soldier who went to the front in the Russo-Japanese War. Then “the Japanese, finding the booklets in possession of the Russian prisoners, concluded it must be a good thing, and accordingly translated it into Japanese,” after which “a copy was given to every man in the employ of the Japanese Government, soldier or civilian. Over forty million copies of A Message To Garcia have been printed. This is said to be a larger circulation than any other literary venture has ever attained during the lifetime of an author, in all history,” Hubbard crows, “thanks to a series of lucky accidents.”
Like the accidental fact that it strokes our delight in an orderly world.
It’s easy to see why the powerful call unquestioning obedience a virtue. Garcia is supposedly assigned by U.S. military brass as required reading for the enlisted, for example, and I get that. CEOs buy copies in the thousands for their employees. But why do those of us at lower pay grades find encouragement and comfort in the idea of shutting up and doing what you’re told when it mostly ends up applying to us?
Same reason: The human fear of disorder. It’s an equal opportunity terror. Order means safety. The idea that someone somewhere has a handle on the variables and infinite wisdom offers a much more fundamental reassurance than the messy process of discourse, Natural selection has given us a fear of disorder, and questions bring disorder with them, so the confident following of the orders of superiors gets our slathering vote.
But what if the superior is wrong? What if the order is immoral? Look at those bent, disorderly punctuation marks, each one a curving road to hell. Just do it, and teach your kids the same — if you don’t mind having them follow a straight-road exclamation mark to the very dark side once in a while.
If on the other hand you want to raise powerfully ethical kids, teach them to ask those “idiotic” questions — and to insist on knowing the reasons behind what they are told to be and do.
Full text of Message to Garcia, with Author’s Foreword
See also:
Best Practices 2: Encourage active moral reasoning
When good people say (really, really) bad things
The doubting parent’s guide to the holidays (WaPo)
By Mari-Jane Williams
From the Washington Post Lifestyle section, Dec. 6, 2012
Answering awkward questions is an inevitable part of parenting: Where did I come from? Why doesn’t Santa ever die? Why is that lady so big?
Often, though, the toughest questions are about God and religion. For parents who are not religious, the holidays highlight those queries and at times make us second-guess our choices.
It’s one thing to be ambivalent about religion yourself, but as parents, we want to make sure we expose our children to as many different views as possible.
“It’s easy when you’re childless to sort of float and do what you think is right for you,” said Dale McGowan, author of “Parenting Beyond Belief,” (Amacon, $17.95). “As soon as you have kids, all those questions come to the fore. A number of friends of mine were entirely nonreligious, but once they had kids, they felt that they ought to be going to church.”
Other parents have the added stress of trying to navigate a holiday of another faith, because Christmas is so pervasive this time of year.
“It’s hard,” said Esther Lederman, the associate rabbi at Temple Micah in the District. “If you’re a Jewish parent, you’re trying to make your child not feel bad that Santa isn’t coming to your house. ”
We spoke with McGowan and other experts about how to expose children to the religious traditions of the holidays without compromising your beliefs. Here are some of their suggestions.
Be honest about your doubts, and ask them what they think. The questions don’t need to cause anxiety for parents, McGowan said. Just be honest with your child and tell him that many people celebrate Christmas as the birth of Jesus, but you don’t. Then give him a chance to talk about what makes the most sense to him.
“They need to know that most of the people around them see the world through a religious lens,” said McGowan, who lives in Atlanta.
“Every time I make a statement about what I think is true, I let them know that others think differently and that they get to make up their own minds. It’s not necessary to put blinders on them and not let them see the religious aspect of the holidays. That would be strange.”
Take your children to religious services during the holidays. Andrew Park, the self-described “faith-free dad” who wrote “Between a Church and a Hard Place” (Avery, $26), says he and his wife take their children to services at different churches on Christmas Eve to expose them to a variety of faiths and customs.
“Christmas Eve is an opportunity to experience what religion means to people other than their parents,” said Park, who lives in Chapel Hill, N.C. “The greater the variety of the experiences, the better. It gives them context and understanding about religion. That’s powerful. Whether they become believers in a faith or not, having that understanding helps them become citizens of the world.”
Read biblical stories. Even if you don’t believe in the Bible as a literal text, many of the stories are still fascinating and can capture children’s imaginations. Read the story of Christmas and talk about it in the context of history or ancient mythology.
“There’s something about the Christian story that is very engaging to a kid,” Park said.
He also noted that his two children, ages 8 and 10, are starting to make connections between the practice of modern religion and the way it was practiced in ancient societies, how it’s portrayed in fantasy literature, and the role it has played in history.
Make it secular. Nothing says you have to observe Christmas or Hanukkah as religious holidays, McGowan said.
If you are ambivalent about religion, you can make the holidays a celebration of family and generosity. Or focus on the celebration of light, or Santa and cookies.
“What some parents find is they pop back into the church and it really doesn’t satisfy what they’re looking for, so they look for secular ways to fulfill those needs,” McGowan said. “They are looking for ways to have important landmarks in their lives or rites of passage, and there are lots of equivalents that are entirely humanistic: naming ceremonies for babies, coming of age ceremonies around age 13.”
You want this book
I really shouldn’t presume that you want this book. It’s just that…you kinda do.
I’m giving away three signed, personalized copies of my most recent book Voices of Unbelief: Documents from Atheists and Agnostics to support the year-end fund drive of Foundation Beyond Belief.
It’s a ripping good cause. The humanist members and supporters of FBB have had an astonishing year. We raised over half a million dollars for 24 charities, including our first ever Light the Night drive for the Leukemia Lymphoma Society. We expanded our network of humanist volunteer teams to 23 cities, and we’re poised to launch FBB affiliates in Australia and Canada. Next year we hope to double our membership, launch a new and improved website, and top $1 million in donations.
We make all that happen with a small, dedicated staff and a really reasonable budget. But the budget is still a positive number, and we rely on grants and direct donations to keep the lights on.
So here’s the deal: Join or donate to FBB during December, and for every $5 of membership level or $10 donation you give, you’ll be entered in a drawing for one of three signed, personalized copies of Voices of Unbelief.
Three reasons you just might want this book:
1. Most people will never own it.
It’s an expensive, large-format, high-quality hardcover, intended mostly for universities and libraries. The list price is $100 (and 0 < 100).
2. It’s unique.
The book is built around 47 documents by atheists and agnostics throughout history. In addition to the US and Europe, there are voices from Persia, Uganda, Nigeria, India, and China. The material includes essays, letters, journal entries, clandestine manuscripts, and even transcripts from Inquisition interrogations. Sure, it has Russell and Dawkins, but also Julia Sweeney and Mr. Deity.
3. It includes rare and never-before-published items.
Among several rarities, you’ve probably never read the amazing transcripts of Inquisition interrogations from the 14th century that are included -– because they’ve never been published before in English.
Click to donate to FBB – every $10 gets you 1 entry
Click to join FBB – every $5 of membership level gets you 1 entry
Thanks for putting humanist compassion to work for a better world!
Being Toto
The Wizard of Oz is a secular humanist parable.
I’m not the first to suggest this possibility. But the eye roll I got from my 17-year-old son when I said it at dinner the other night could have cleared the dishes from the table. He’s currently soldiering through an AP Lit class in which the teacher earnestly insists that no cigar is ever, ever just a cigar. When one of the short stories they read described a red ovarian cyst in a jar, the teacher looked searchingly at the ceiling. “Red,” she said, drawing out the syllable and shaping her next thought with her hands. “Passion.”
“OR,” said my boy in the exasperated retelling, “red — the color of an ovarian cyst!!”
So I knew I was in for it when I claimed that The Wizard of Oz isn’t just a story about a girl and her weird dream.
But it isn’t.
Frank Baum (who wrote the book) was a religious skeptic and Ethical Culturist. Yip Harburg (who wrote the screenplay and songs) was an atheist. That doesn’t mean a thing by itself, of course. But it takes very little ceiling-gazing and hand-gesturing to see the Oz story as a direct reflection of a humanistic worldview.
Dorothy and her friends have deep, yearning human needs — for home, knowledge, heart and courage. When they express these needs, they’re told that only the omnipotent Wizard of Oz can fulfill them. They seek an audience with the Wizard, tremble in fear and awe, then are unexpectedly ordered to do battle with Sata… sorry, the Witch, who turns out pretty feeble in the end. (Water, seriously?)
When they return, having confronted their fears, the Wizard dissembles, and Toto pulls back the curtain to reveal a mere human behind all the smoke and holograms — at which point they learn that all the brains, courage, heart, and home they sought from the Wizard had always been right in their own hands.
It’s really not much of a stretch to see the whole thing as a direct debunk of religion and a celebration of humanistic self-reliance. And as a bonus, Connor actually granted me the point.
It is finished.
Well, not really. Still have to write the front matter and Chapter 1 (called the “Dummies chapter”). And there’s still the four-week author review round, where I go through the whole manuscript annotated with the comments of three editors (technical, project, and development) and iron it out. But the hard part — the Creation — that’s done.
The end was pretty ugly, just pushing the words out. I seriously don’t want to hear the word atheist or any of its relatives again for three months.
Because I didn’t write the book in sequence, you’ll have to figure out which chapter I wrote last. It’s not terrible, just mundane. I’ll see if I can spackle some cracks in the review round, perk it up a bit. But overall, for a ten-month project done in four months, I think the book came out all right.
Thanks so much for your help. This blog will be quiet for a little while now. Please pull the door all the way shut on your way out. It sticks.
