Those of you who have read some of my previous blogposts are aware of my passion for the challenge of staying present and attentive. Perhaps my zeal for the topic exists since I am generally in need of improvement in that department. In any case, here is a little story of something that happened today along those lines.

Sandy and I tend a vegetable garden on a neighbor’s land. Our neighbor and her wife just had a baby, so they’re too busy to do any gardening — it’s just me and Sandy (and our dog) doing the work. We haven’t worked this garden since Sandy’s mom, a terrific gardener, died in May of 2015, and it’s good to be back at it. Our new stay-at-home existence, since the pandemic hit, means that, with the exception of the path behind the house where we walk the dog, the garden is the place to which we go more than any other. So it’s very familiar once again, like a friendship rekindled, and the visits are (we hope mutually) rewarding.

Have you ever picked fresh beans off a bean bush? It’s an exercise in paying attention. I could have sworn that I had picked one particular bush clean (of the beans big enough to be worth picking), and I turned the corner of the bean plot and started working my way around the next bush. It’s like what they say about studying the Talmud: if you haven’t seen the bean plant from at least 40 angles, you’re bound to miss something.

For some reason, while working on that next bush. I looked up. And sure enough, from 90 degrees to the south, that supposedly clean-picked bush revealed a previously hidden beauty, plump and lush, right in front of my nose. I plucked the bean and dropped it in my basket with a chuckle. Then I (or that part of my personality whom Sandy has named “Thorough Man”) turned that same bean plant over and upside down and all around one more time, just to be sure.

One sneaky thing about bean plants is that the beans themselves are almost exactly the same color as the stems on which they grow. You have to get into a slightly altered state of seeing, I find, to get in the “see the bean” zone where you start beholding the mother lode. And once you’re in the seeing zone, it’s total flow. You glide from one bean bush to the next, and it’s like floating on a cloud — you feel almost weightless, borne along by the momentum of your slightly elevated consciousness. I never know how long it will last. But I always feel just slightly cleaner, or cleansed is probably the better word, lighter, almost purified somehow by seeing the beans in this way.

Blessed Bean, I guess, could be my prayer.

* * * * * * *

Singing is much like gardening in that it is also a practice of staying present. Every breath is new, so every phrase is new, even if you’ve sung it a hundred times before. For those of you who have recorded yourself for our virtual choir videos, you know what I’m talking about. Your 23rd take was different from your 22nd take, right? — different enough that you sent in take #23 for the virtual choir and not #22!

There is that saying about how “a river is never the same twice,” and it applies also to singing. You are in your home recording room, taping yourself for a choir video. You are thinking about different things this time around the song than you did four minutes ago. The light in the room may be slightly different than the previous time you sang it. You might feel more or less vocally in the zone. You might give a little extra energy to get through and past the high point of the phrase this time, so you can feel like this is the time when it really worked. How can this phrase ever be exactly like one you already did? It can’t. All you can do is pay attention and be completely present to your singing right now, and take what you get.

I am preparing for my annual role as the cantor at Congregation Rodfei Zedek for several worship services during the Jewish High Holidays, and I can attest to the truth of a phrase never being the same twice. When I sing the haunting Kol Nidre prayer, or the majestic Hineni (“Here I am”), or the Hashkiveynu, or even more matter-of-fact daily prayers, I feel the burden of needing to be fully immersed in the meaning of the words, because my job as the sheliach tzibbur (that’s Hebrew for “messenger of the community”) is to help other people enter their own experience of prayer. It helps that the heightened nature of the High Holidays is marked by these prayers being set to special melodies, alerting the ear of everyone present that it’s time to wake up and pay attention.

This year I had the added challenge of recording myself at home for 15 virtual videos of anthems that are sung by cantor and choir. And boy, can I tell you, no phrase is the same twice! It was humbling to listen to my own work and hear places where I went flat, even when in the actual moment of singing I felt that I had nailed it. Okay, time for another take. (Thank goodness for playback mode and good headphones.) Even old chestnuts like “Sim Shalom” by the great Max Janowski–a song I have sung at least once a year since I was 17–are exercises in paying attention. My job is to keep riding the wave of the melody, surfing the breath to make sure that all the bumps and contours are deftly handled, and doing it all with emotion behind it so that the words come to life.

This is the singer’s job, after all. Those of you who are new to working with Sounds Good may not have heard me say this yet in rehearsal, so I’ll say it here: I believe that our fundamental purpose as singers is to transmit emotion to our audiences. We are charged with the duty to be so fully present in our singing, and so well prepared, that we can transcend and include our vocal technique so that it our singing is at the service of the feelings in the song, so that those feelings in turn are communicated vividly to those for whom we sing. I say this with some sense of seriousness and urgency because I truly feel that, when we can fulfill our purpose as singers in this way, we elevate the state of life on this earth and raise the vibration of everyone and everything. And Lord knows, the human race could use some elevation right about now.

I don’t say this to lay a trip on you, just to articulate for us all a vision of what a glorious thing it can be when we climb the mountaintop together. When the intention to communicate is joined with the discipline of staying present, remarkable things can happen. I wish that experience for you.

I love you all!

–Jon

Jonathan Miller is co-founder and artistic director/CEO of Sounds Good Choir.