When you sing with a group of people, you learn how to subsume yourself into a group consciousness because a capella singing is all about the immersion of the self into the community. That's one of the great feelings - to stop being me for a little while and to become us. That way lies empathy, the great social virtue.
When I was young, an eccentric uncle decided to teach me how to lie. Not, he explained, because he wanted me to lie, but because he thought I should know how it's done so I would recognise when I was being lied to.
I've always thought that art is a lie, an interesting lie. And I'll sort of listen to the "lie" and try to imagine the world which makes that lie true...what that world must be like, and what would have to happen for us to get from this world to that one.
