Jonathan Singletary is almost ready to go live on Instagram. Scan your short sleeve button: it is clean and different from the one that had been last. He breathes deeply. He gives a quick thanks to God, opens Instagram, hits the white circle and heads at 5:30 pm, people from all over the country begin to tune into improvised music in a cozy spiritual space. It is “piano and prayer” time.
The Los Angeles Sun Light of the afternoon shines through gauze curtains behind SingleTary, who sits on his piano with fingers prepared on the keys. Music begins. On Instagram, members of the “piano and prayer” community greet and share where they are listening: Atlanta, Pittsburgh, Houston, New York, Maine, Rhode Island, New Jersey and even Chile.
Jonathan Singletary connects with new people and lengths during his “piano and prayer” sessions.
(Amanda Villarosa / for the times)
The solery riffs with the confidence of a musician who began playing a toy piano at the age of 5 years in his family's house in Nashua, New Hampshire. Now, a father of two 38 -year -old children begins to vocalize while touches, sometimes forming words, but always in a relaxing harmony.
During the first days of the pandemic, from his living room in New York, Singletary began “piano and prayer”, a weekly spiritual meeting, but not necessarily religious, so that people connect and share. For him, he was the perfect antidote for the isolation he was feeling.
“Hello, hello, welcome to 'piano and prayer'. Happy Monday,” says SingleTary. Stop playing and turns to the camera with a warm and cozy smile.
The bachelor's eyes light up. “Jaden, it's good to see you, my mother is here, so many family faces, Hannah, it's good to see you, Aunt Jeanette, it's good to see you. I missed myself, I missed this.” SingleTary and his family had been on vacation for a couple of weeks, and is excited to return. “Debra, it's good to see you.”
Debra Mazer, an original “piano and prayer”, is looking from Atlanta. “I had Jonathan's sessions on my pandemics list. I had a schedule for me that I put in the calendar because Zoom groups were very important to my mental health and well -being,” says Mazer. He discovered this meeting following the then Figure of SingleTary, now wife, Elaine Welteroth, former editor in chief of Teen Vogue.
It was a difficult time to be a professional musician in April 2020. “I made music. I did many shows, but all that was closed,” says Singletary. He accredits Welteroth by encouraging him to combine social networks with music. He remembers that she said: “Continue there and just touch, just play music.”
Jonathan Singletary played music in New York places before pandemic, but once the orders of staying at home were in place, he needed another exit: he entered “piano and prayer.”
(Amanda Villarosa / for the times)
Singletary confesses that it was a full start of potholes. The first iteration was him playing acoustic versions of his songs: “He did not completely resonate with me.” Then he returned to his first instrument, the piano. “Piano & Prayer” was not created to be an effort to make money at the beginning, but Singletary recently launched a Patreon, which allows creators to raise money directly from fans.
“I was always playing piano for fun. I would enter the chapel of my Catholic high school, and play the piano, and my friends would enter and lay down on the floor and simply came out while playing,” he remembers. “This thing [“Piano & Prayer”] It has existed for a while. “
Fast advance until 2020, instead of a floor of the chapel, to the isolated people from all over the country joined 45 minutes to connect. Mazer points out that while the world moved from Covid, “Piano & Prayer” is one of the online activities that began during the pandemic to which he still regularly attends.
Jonathan Singletary Riffs while playing during their Instagram sessions, sometimes only vocalizing as spectators share their prayers in the comments.
(Amanda Villarosa / for the times)
Monday night sessions are a mixture of gentle piano music, meditation, prayer and community. During a recent live broadcast, 40 people gathered, those who want to share what they are thinking and feeling in the chat, offering sentences for them and others.
“For those affected by floods in TX,” shares a person.
“Praying for my students to invent this summer session and go to graduate,” writes someone.
“Praying for families in Texas. Lord, have mercy,” he appears.
Jonathan Singletary touches the piano in a corner of his house.
(Amanda Villarosa / for the times)
SingleTary adopts a friendly approach, knowing people where they are with their religiosity or spirituality. Never preacher or too much cemetery, sometimes God is never mentioned. He was raised in a Church family. “The Church was a great part. It has been a great part of my life since I have memory.”
For SingleTary, the idea of going to church every Sunday changed during the pandemic. He did not feel safe, and then moved to a new city and finding a new church was difficult with social distancing.
On the other side of the country, it is 8:30 pm and the four children of Bobby Brown, from 5 to 12 years old, are in bed. “Piano & Prayer” plays on his phone while Brown and his wife are hanging out in the humid air of the night. “It's like something romantic in the background while we are talking,” Brown explains.
“Then he [Singletary] Throw some prayers. We pause and breathe deeply, because it tells us to do it and remember us. “
Jonathan Singletary, with his children.
(Amanda Villarosa / for the times)
Before moving to Atlanta, Brown lived in Inglewood. He directs a non -profit group called Donuts For Dads, a support for parents. This is where he and Singletary connected for the first time. Brown says he didn't realize that his friend had this growing online community.
“He doesn't even promote it. It was like, 'hey, I'm going to live',” Brown laughs. “Every time I see one of my friends live, I just click to support them. Even if I can only climb for a couple of minutes, try to throw some hearts there.”
Both Mazer and Brown could be considered part of a larger tendency of individuals who identify as spiritual instead of religious. A survey of the Pew 2023 Research Center found that 41% of American adults report that they have become more spiritual throughout their lives, compared to only 13% who say they have become less spiritual.
These data make sense for Sarah Wilkins-Laflamme, an associated professor in social studies and legal studies at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, where her area of specialization is the sociology of religion.
“It's like, no, religion is not for me. But I like spirituality. All these changes have happened in generations, especially among younger cohorts, the term religion itself has an almost negative connotation in some contexts, but spirituality does not do it.”
Single womanIt has around 25,000 followers, publishes Instagram's lives on its grid and says that the opinions in each “piano and prayer session” are usually around 1,000, but have reached up to 5,000.
“It is not about people to see me something. The most moving and maybe also validating is that I see people who get involved with each other and encourage and pray for each other and respond to the requests for prayer of the other.”
At the moment, if it is a Monday at 5:30 pm, you can find SingleTary in their black lacquered piano ready to welcome anyone who needs it in the “piano and prayer” family.
