Rock My Soul as community

As a member of Rock My Soul from the get-go, I want to pick up on one of the themes from Dawn's previous posts. It has to do with the sense of community. As someone who is just beginning to learn about the gospel tradition, it seems to me that a sense of community is vital to a successful gospel choir. I believe we have that in Rock My Soul. But the trick with community is that it can't be forced. And for authentic community to happen, people have to enter into it with a spirit of respect and compassion -- for one another, and in this case, for the music and the tradition.

What makes us interesting, I think, is that we are not part of any specific religious community. At the same time, many of our members belong to various religious traditions. And some would even describe themselves as agnostic. Yet we are a community. Our community is formed not around a specific religious tradition or doctrine, but around the music itself -- its history and meaning over the years -- and what it still can mean and will come to mean in the future. Our community is drawn together for the music. It is the uplifting power of the music that we seek to share with audiences.

This is a relatively revolutionary approach to forming a gospel choir. And it is working. Rehearsals are great. We're finding our own way, developing our own style. And we're bringing a particular choral tradition music - gospel music - to a part of the world - New England - that's not usually associated with gospel music. What fun!

If you haven't heard Rock My Soul sing yet, come hear us! If you have thoughts to share, please comment. If you can't hear us live (or if you can!), buy our CD. Go to www.dfgp.org You'll enjoy it, I do believe. Oh, and we're always looking for tenors.