We auditioned for the local choir when we were kids. It was a very foreign notion but someone in the group thought it was a good idea, so we went, as a group.

The organist assembled us in the choir of the church, over the narthex, He talked to us about the importance of what we were doing and what he expected of us. He had a deep respect for his music, and that impressed me. I can still remember it because it showed me a richness in my neighborhood culture that was, for the most part, invisible to me.

He had each of us sing a few notes of the scale so he could get a sense of how we could fit into the group. He then gave us a couple of days to learn the words and music. I have to say, I had a pretty good voice, back then, before adolescence.

We were assigned a short Gregorian piece, to test our memories more than anything else, perhaps. The Latin had something to do with my reaction to this whole thing because I didn’t know the language. I had to memorize the sounds and the music together. It changed how I reacted to the ‘meaning’ of the song. There was no meaning. It was all about the sounds.

When my time came, like the others before me, I stood at the outside edge of the choir and faced the full length of the narthex. The choir master was down below at the back of the church and I sang my part, alone and a cappella.

I could feel the volume. My voice went out into the space and it came back. I understood space in a new way. The power of it was greater than I expected. It was about my voice, in space. It was all about me and the space I was in.