by Benjamin Stevens
In the first post in this series, Dave Sperandio “humbly submitted that,” on the model of ‘required reading’ or ‘required listening’, “SoJam is required rocking.”
I agree.
And you know that when a professor of literature thinks that something rocks, well, clearly. It. Rocks!
But I’m afraid I can’t be as humble about it as Dave. In fact, when it comes to the main reason SoJam is required rocking, I’m afraid I just can’t be humble at all. For I don’t feel any humility; not one bit.
Instead, I feel … pride.
Now, I know what you must be thinking, and you’re right: a professor of literature should definitely know better. For don’t I know what happens to the proud in all the myths? Yes, and it’s always the same: roll of thunder, flash of lightning, and pfft! the offending mortal gets vaporized.
Call me crazy, but actually I feel pretty safe from that danger, even if I am sort of thumbing my nose at Loud-Thundering Zeus. (It helps if you take just a moment to imagine me thumbing my nose at Loud-Thundering Zeus.) You may think I’m crazy, but I know I’m safe. How do I know?
I’m not proud of myself. I’m proud of you.
Since I don’t have space to list all the reasons, I’ll name just a few.
In the first workshop I led at SoJam, 75 of you filled a classroom to the bursting: it was standing-room only, and while I stood on a chair to be seen and heard, you did your very best to drown me out with electrifyingly enthusiastic vocal percussion! I then had the pleasure of watching, still standing on that chair, as all 75 of you took turns crowding into a nearby bathroom, “looking”–as the Persuasions say–”for an echo”.
SoJam is where the workshop doesn’t stop at the bathroom door! (I don’t get to write the slogans.)
In a group masterclass not long after, about 18 of you were asked (read: made) to sing the same song through several times. After the first time through, I worked with the soloist while Christopher Diaz worked with the block; the block dug deep for a truly collaborative dynamic range, the soloist learned to sing directly to an audience of one. The second time through? One brave singer started to cry, and then another; and then Christopher and I started to cry; and then the group broke open like a levee. But the sound!
SoJam is where grown men and women cry, because that’s how beautiful the music is.
Finally, there’s a workshop I lead at every CASA festival. In it, 50 or so participants–50 of you–gather together at the end of that long Saturday, deliriously full of information and music; in some cases also full of Chick-Fil-A. Those 50 or so attendees, you among them, are made to sing, all together, a song that most of you have never sung and–as the years go by–more and more of you have never even heard of. This takes, oh, forty-five seconds. And then I talk for close to forty-five minutes about the aesthetic and ideological ramifications of contemporary …
Wait. Wait a minute. Back up.
SoJam is where you and 49 or more other people, most of you strangers to each other, all of you exhausted and all of you happy, can learn a whole new song together IN FORTY-FIVE SECONDS!
And then what we really talk about? What we really talk about is how such a musical miracle is possible.
And even if you already know how, it’s where you find out how to say how more clearly: how to share your art and your knowledge about your art ever more meaningfully. SoJam is where–to return to one of Dave’s perfect words–you, we, collaborate.
Above all, this collaboration takes place in the workshops and masterclasses. It’s from there, from those rooms, that “those who attend SoJam take back with them something that cannot be found in any Youtube video, Facebook page, or Forum.” It’s something that can’t be found anywhere else than where it took place the very first time. Where, we might say, it was performed live.
This is the essence, really, of music, and all of us on the SoJam team owe its continual appearance at the festival, year after wonderful year, to you.
That’s why I’m proud of you. And it’s why I’m looking forward to working with you–whether again or for the very first time; whether in a workshop or in a one-on-one masterclass or as part of our special opportunities for peformance–I’m looking forward to working with you in November.
In the meantime, one last example of my pride in you. The next post in this series will be by Lauren Barreiro. She attended SoJam as a member of the FSU AcaBelles. Not long after, we invited her to take part in a panel. Since then, she’s led workshops on arranging, and in November she’ll lead a brand-new workshop on “Dressing for Successing”.
Oh, right, and one more small thing: she’s back on-stage this year … as part of a headlining group.
SoJam is where you go from attendee to panel member to masterclinician and workshop leader to headlining performer!
For all those reasons, when I say that I’m looking forward to working with you, what I mean is that I’m looking forward to learning from you, to being impressed by you, to being made proud.
