How do you end without an ending?
Musicians are well accustomed to clear endings. Whether it’s the exuberantly repetitive final cadence in a classical symphony, a wailing 13(#11) chord for a big band, or the Plagal Amen at the end of a hymn, we pay a lot of attention to the endings to our music.
That’s because endings are vital. They help us see the structure and form of the experience, they sum up the ideas that we have interacted with, and they give release to engaged listeners.
How do you end without an ending? Without that final coda, with the last four bars unsung, how does that leave you as a performer? As a listener?
Even if the music stops, we lose the sense of completion. The missing ending can leave us unfulfilled.
That’s what we’re facing as the K-12 school years skate to an end. Blessings on the teachers, administrators, and staff who recognize this and are imagining new codas for 2020. We can’t have the final cadences we anticipated this year, but we can create an alternative that allows us to sense the conclusion.
My wife worked unbelievably hard to put together a coda on her choirs’ year – a 45+ minute “concert” on YouTube, complete with senior and staff solo videos, 2 virtual choirs, awards, and the usual final concert speeches. It’s a great example of an Imperfect V-I cadence to end the year. May we give that gift to our students and our children, and may someone give it to us.