Why sing?

This was originally posted on my Songbird Salon blog, but someone just asked me today why I am a singer, so I decided to reiterate. Or perhaps reaffirm is the more precise word.

"Why sing?" There are many possible answers. For me, the easiest answer has been that I sing because I cannot do otherwise. I was born singing, into a singing family. I have never been a non-singer. There is, for me, no greater joy, and no greater sense of connection to God. So, as the Quaker hymn asks, "How can I keep from singing?"

But that only explains why I sing at home. Why do I go out into the world and sing? What is the purpose? What is the singing for?

Ysaye Barnwell, of the women's a capella group Sweet Honey in the Rock, teaches inspiring workshops in the art of singing, in which she speaks of singing as a way to express profound emotion, to gather in community, and to connect with the Divine. It's hard to improve on that. Three aspects: personal, communal, spiritual.

I believe with all my heart that I am called, that it is my gift, my obligation, my responsibility to sing. To express that which cannot be expressed in words alone, in the company of others. The good songs speak of our shared human experiences, and if I am doing my very best, there is nothing that divides us into performer and performed-for. Rather, we are just "us", and I happen to be the one carrying the melody at that moment as we go along. There are many others doing the same, a family, a community of song. When I am gone, someone else will pick up the melody, as I also believe I am part of a lineage. We'll all keep going along, for humans are born to sing, and that will never end.