Integrity, Grace, and Virtue - thoughts on music by a debutante

            When I think of the word “rite” the big three that come to my mind are birth, marriage, and death.  Unfortunately or fortunately, as you may look at it, I have only experienced one of these in my life, the birth part.  On February 22, 1990 in the early hours of the morning, I was born while Haydn’s 6^th, 7^th, and 8^th symphonies were playing.

          However, my most recent and probably most unique rite occurred over Christmas break. I made my debut. Yes, I came out to society and now am available for marriage. Too bad I won’t find my husband at school, ha-ha! At the Durham Debutante Ball, music was played ALL night long. And let me tell you friends, a lot of it wasn’t magnificent music. They played what I like to call “elevator” music while we danced to the Cotillion Figure, the Grand March and of course during the good old Garland Dance. I think that the type of music was expected. This music was simply pleasing enough to the ear, and there so that we could dance around in our large white dresses. The music was largely in major keys and stylistically pretty cheesy. Don’t get me wrong sometimes I like cheese, but they were pouring it on. It  was just light and fluffy. It was very uninspired and certainly nothing special. The use of this music was to show us off to society and, in the old days, so that the young men of society could get a good look.

          The music did not necessarily reflect the mood of the debutantes, because if it did it would perhaps sound panic stricken or extremely emotional. You see, we were all very concerned about not tripping while being paraded around and having just the right curtsey. This type of insipid music lasted most of the night, until the after ball party began. The traditional “Father Daughter Waltz” was taught to us early in the process, but without any actual music. During the week of the ball, they finally played the music for us. Immediately I realized the chosen song that was a version of “ What Wonderful World”, made famous by Louis Armstrong. There was only one problem – it was in 4/4 time! I spent a large portion of the rest of the day trying to politely explain to non-musical people that it wasn’t possible to do a waltz to a song that was in common time

 

          The music that I describe as so boring was indeed just that. The fact that there was no great or exciting music at the ball was entirely appropriate because the focus of this even was not on the music. It was on the dancing that all of the debutantes were doing. The music was just a tool for us to use in order to do some very traditional dances and keep in time with each other while doing it. The music in this case was just a small part of the larger picture, which was the big southern tradition of making our debut.