Too Easy

Hey, I could do that.

No. You couldn’t.

I was listening to an acoustic concert by the group Above & Beyond. Its three musicians were the core of the group that performed – and the music was beautiful.

And as I was listening to a particularly good song, I was especially drawn to the voice of one of the singers. He was just doing backup, and that only for a few phrases, but his voice had a quality that I quite enjoyed.

And that’s when I thought, “No. You couldn’t.”

I wasn’t thinking of myself there – I have no delusions of being a good singer. My voice is particularly tired and my pitch tends to vary from the acceptable.  But I thought that for the countless others who might have believed they could. I thought it for the infamous America’s Got Talent hopefuls who can’t believe they’ve been publicly rejected. No, they couldn’t.

The problem with so much of what we see being done by professionals in their craft is that they make it look so easy. So, maybe you like singing. But can you really stand up there and nail it every time? Face it. There’s “them” and then there’s the rest of us. I’m not really talking about fame here. Too many people are too famous for the wrong reasons. They have no talent other than self-promotion – getting noticed. They turn their lives into a soap opera so they can be adored by a crowd that is less than discerning.

I’m talking about those who can make something both beautiful and peaceful. Something that lifts the soul.

Perhaps we should be thankful that not all of us can. How boring would the world be without beauty that stands out above it all? It would be a dreary world indeed.

One last word: Above & Beyond are not my style. They specialize in electronic dance music, and while there’s some of that out there that’s passable, it gets old fast. But they did this, and it shows that they do have some kind of talent beneath their commercialized veneer.