Radiating Joy!

I'm participating in the holiday chorus at work again this year. We had one of our cafeteria performances yesterday. It was fun. Once again, they took me and one other woman aside and quietly asked us to stand in front of the microphone. But that's not what I want to focus on.

I want to talk about the absolute joy that radiated from our director's face throughout the entire performance. She was dressed in black with red sparkles in her sweater. She has straight black hair and was wearing red lipstick. As she directed us she had this HUGE smile on her face. She looked just like a doll. She was in her element - directing music. And the quality of the singing didn't affect her... because trust me, while a few of us can sing, there are many who have a hard time singing on pitch or even at the correct time. But in spite of that, she radiated joy during the entire performance. It was awesome and contagious.

One odd thing that happened to me, and I seem to recall this happening last year too, is that I got a little light-headed, like I wasn't breathing enough or correctly. We have one more performance so I'll focus on correct breathing. Don't want to hyperventilate my way through the entire thing.

Strength

The rehearsals at work have begun for this year's annual holiday concert. We're doing most of the same songs as last year, which is good because I haven't been able to make all the rehearsals. But I finally made it to one today.

One of the songs we're doing is Mao Tsur, in 4 part harmony - soprano, alto, tenor and bass. (I can't find a version I like to link to, so if you don't know it, sorry.) So the director asks the group, "Who's singing soprano?" and every woman in the room raises their hand. So the woman who is also playing piano for us (and is probably one of the most talented musicians I know, more on that in a moment) says she'll do alto, and then they ask if I'll do alto because they need strong singers to carry the line. I almost looked behind me to see if they were talking to someone else. I did say I'll sing whatever part they need, but ... I don't feel like a strong singer. I'm a strong singer when I know the part. Usually. The alto part is not only very different from the melody, it's also all off, tempo-wise. I don't know the musical term but it sort of repeats the line after the melody - or in the middle - not exactly on the measure. Then it skips words to catch up. I wasn't feeling so strong about it... and we went over that alto line like 5 times and I still wasn't confident. The woman who plays piano said she couldn't sing and play at the same time. Correction - she said she couldn't sing that alto line and play the piece at the same time. I was surprised. She's that type of talented person who will look at a new piece of music and say, "Wait a sec... ok..." and then just play it. She can play anything on the piano. She has a beautiful singing voice. She probably plays other instruments too. She has two musically talented children. She studied music in school. Her family goes to music "camp" over the summer. So all I could think was, "I better make sure I'm standing near her when we sing this so I can follow along..." She's the strong singer who will be carrying the line ... not me. I will be the strong follower.

It was kind of fun to learn it though. I used to learn harmonies all the time. I'm out of practice. I'm really out of practice. And it's low. Is alto lower than mezzo even? Maybe. The low notes are low. When the notes went up on the staff it was like a drink of water - I felt relief, it was comfortable. So it's a challenge. I may not be the strong singer they think I am, but I guess I can give it a shot.

Work, Quiche, Salsa, Song

I've had two additional rehearsals with the chorus at work. Last month we learned a song in French and had quiche. Today we did one in Spanish and had chips and salsa. For the Spanish song, there are two lines - what they're calling alto and soprano. The alto line carries the melody and the soprano line has harmonies and background. Alto... that's what I sang in my high school chorus, but there the sopranos always carried the melodies and the altos did the harmonies. Well I sang alto except for the Hallelujah chorus, when I sang tenor since there weren't enough boys in chorus. Isn't that nuts? I sang tenor? And now I'm a soprano! I can't even fathom singing that low now. So what is alto? Mezzo-soprano? Lower than that?

Work, Pizza, Song

Yesterday I learned that my company has a chorus that performs during the holidays. I joined, and today was the first rehearsal. There were maybe 20 people there. Denise, who I've mentioned in this blog before, is the musical director. Someone was playing an electric piano. Denise had us warm up with scales and other little vocalises, all the while shouting out little tips - "Deep breaths!" "Yawn!" "Relax your jaw!" and so on. Then we just jumped right in and sang Pastorale, "Tu scendi dalle stelle," an Italian Christmas song.

We met in a conference room. Think of your typical office conference room, that's where we were. The chair I was in was too low - it was like I was sitting on the floor! So my feet actually touched the ground, but it made my knees come up too high. You may be thinking, so what? But you must understand that this is very unusual for me as I am a mere 60 inches tall. Ok, 60 and 1/2. But still... so what this is leading to is, I ended up standing up near the wall because I could not produce the tone I wanted while sitting in that bizarre position. Stan, who I've also mentioned as he was one of our Romeo party, seemed annoyed by this. He said, "Just press your hands to the floor." Hmm has he been reading my blog? Anyway, I stayed standing and no one else noticed or cared.

And because the song was in Italian, we had pizza for lunch.