The sound of music

Teen Times/Ciaran O'Rourke:Our silence was brimming with an eager kind of intensity as we waited for Mr Potts to lower his hands. I could feel the flutter of excitement in my heartbeat and knew that around me, the rest of the choir felt the same.

And I knew that, like mine, their eyes were unblinking and tight with concentration, willing our choirmaster, our principal, to unleash the sound.

The organ had completed its round and in the smallness of the time between its end and our beginning, an almost unregistered sense of calm had descended upon the chapel. And though I could not see the organ player, I sensed Fr Brennan as he too looked up, if only for a second, and met Mr Potts's gaze, a current of understanding passing between them. Mr Potts glanced to the tenors and then the basses, his stare expectant, and his posture proud and ready. And so it began.

Whatever dam we had built in the few seconds before was instantly washed away as we sang. The hymn flowed from us in a stream of Latin and harmony, and gradually swelled in a tide of power and passion. My own voice became lost in that of the choir's as we, the basses, lifted and were lifted by the tenors, and our music swayed upwards towards the ceiling of the church. I felt the sheets in my hands hum and vibrate as wave upon wave of melody rushed over them.

Beside me, I knew, my friend was locked in the heat and energy of those few minutes, tingling through him as it was through me, and in everyone there was a kind of joy that none of us could put to words. With each syllable and rising note, a thud of satisfaction pulsed through the choir. First years, fourth years, fifth and sixth years, each one of us different and yet bound by the same soaring sensation. With each approving sweep of Mr Potts's hands as they rose and fell and rose again to the rhythm of the hymn, the strength we felt grew and grew.

As the final drop of music echoed around, as we slowly blinked ourselves back to reality, as our heartbeats stuttered an elated beat, a shyness surrounded us. An awkwardness that arose from understanding something new; from sensing that beneath all the corridors of homework, study, tests and sweaty uniforms, there was something deeper to our school, something bound within the walls, within ourselves that defined every move and action we made. A unity, a fellowship, an ethos, something that words could not describe, and yet we saw it there, if only for a second, and felt the power it held within and around us.

That feeling stayed with me, that sense of hope that only moments can unveil, the knowledge that all things are possible within the realms of youth and friendship. And still, sometimes I hear its sound, as it rumbles from within the walls.

Ciaran O'Rourke (15) is a transition-year student at Gonzaga College SJ, Dublin

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