I needed something fun. When I received an email that the choir was looking for some supplemental voices to carry off the big numbers for the Good Friday and Easter services, I got excited. Ooh! I could sing Hallelujah Chorus! I actually know that one! When Nick didn't blink at the idea of taking care of my two kids, I wrote the pastor that I'd be there. As I recall, the last time I sang the Handel, I sang the tenor part and wrote I could sing either the alto or tenor parts.
Ha ha ha. Contrary to yesterday's commentary, this isn't high school.
The hymns were hard and unfamiliar. I've forgotten how to breathe, and had to struggle to keep up with reading 4-part choral music. Oh what was I thinking?! Fortunately, the woman to my left was strong sight-reader, so I followed her tune. After the Beethoven and Handel my upper range, unpracticed and weak from nearly two decades of cigarette smoking (even a year in the past, the damage is there), was thready and faint. The last hymns we sung were only 5 of us singing 4 parts, I doubled a veteran alto. I did okay.
As I stood to leave at the end of the rehearsal, the tenor and alto (husband and wife) smiled, thanked me, and asked if I would come sing with them regularly. "I love to sing," I replied, my voice tired and hoarse, "but my schedule is hard. And Oh MY! I'd forgotten how hard this all is."
The choir director shares our pastor's casual confidence that everything will come together.
They make it easy to work past that initial fear that I don't belong. That I can't. I did. I do.
3 comments:
Bravo....good for you!
We are our own worst critics. Everyone else sees the good stuff while we have a tendency to concentrate on the bad. Silly us.
I hope you go back.
From what I hear you're a fab singer. The ease will return with practice. I'm sure you know that. Drinks loads of water to get your voice in shape again. Four-part harmony with 5 voices sounds heavenly. Wow.
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