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My husband played tuba in his high school orchestra and marching band, using an instrument loaned to him by the school. Aside from being bulky and expensive, the tuba does not lend itself to urban living, so he never owned one of his own, and hadn’t played in years by the time we met. But a few years after we got married, he heard about the Early Music Society of Los Angeles, and found one of its leaders who gave lessons in her home, which was not very far from where we were living at the time.
So he took up recorder and transverse flute. Other members of the society played some of the more exotic period instruments, like the shawm, the sackbut, the krumhorn and the rackett.
As Unitartian Universalists, we are definitely not “Jesus is the reason for the season” folks. I love all the pagan stuff which make the holidays colorful and fun — mistletoe, Yule logs, decorated trees, all the good things to eat and drink — and of course the music, especially the Early Music, which is sometimes a pagan or secular tune, with Christianized lyrics.
Just the thing to listen to on a winter’s night while stuffing our holiday letter into envelopes, and adding stamps and labels. With some hot Wassail to sip, it’s a great getaway from all the Christmas stress of the annual Type-A-for-America craziness that engulfs our society. And I hope it gives your day a good start this cold December morning.
“A Holly Jolly Christmas” and “Jingle Bell Rock” do start to wear on me the 4th or 10th or 23rd time the Muzak starts over. There’s something about a cappella voices and simple acoustic instruments not made on an assembly line that I never get tired of hearing.
