My 8-year-old granddaughter Hosanna has discovered harmony! Visiting this month from Africa, she has taken a keen interest in the piano and has been learning to play the melody of Christ The Lord Is Risen Today.
Melodies are great, but they just beg for harmony. So the other evening when she was practicing her song I knelt down beside her at the piano and showed her how to add a few notes of harmony. She just lit up with glee at the sound. Much to my delight, she was hooked. Now she’s busy learning to add occasional notes of harmony to the melody.
I remember the first time I heard harmony. It was in a church service in Papua New Guinea. I think I was about 4 years old. I didn’t know that my mother was singing the alto part to the hymns. All I knew was it was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard. I was transfixed by harmony and have been ever since.
Isn’t our Creator wise and wonderful? Wise to have designed music with natural “laws” such as harmony, and wonderful to have given us the senses to enjoy and the skills to create music according to those natural laws.
Wonderful are Your works, And my soul knows it very well. (Ps. 139:14)