At first I am attracted to the simple beauty of the melody; then I play it again and it is more beautiful still. I'm humming it in the day, but I don't really get it, the delicacies of its rises and falls escape me and I can only reproduce variations of the main line, an almost brutal distillation. Then it is forgotten completely.
I play it again the next day and the next, and each time I hear it as if it is quite new. As I become more familiar with the song I begin to hear the individual voices, blending in harmony ever so subtly into a complete whole. I find myself listening with the greatest attention as though I were listening to the falling of a feather. And then I am close to tears at the delicate beauty of such a coming-together of human voices, gently ascending and descending, whispering with one another, at times very close to silence...... and taking me deeply into my feeling.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkOJdk4FMWg
Ray Abis. August 2011.