Singing

[orthent]

Right before seminar started, the girl sitting next to me saw "Secrets of the Old" on my lap. "That's one of my favorite things ever!" she said, and I immediately imagined myself making a cat's breakfast of it--a song I also love, the first I've ever been assigned that really spoke to me. This classmate was the first to sing--she did "Will

Comments

[indongcho]

I haven't sung in ages, but... A large part of a good performance is emotion, I think. Some of my favourite singers don't necessarily have the best voices out there, but when a singer can drag me along with the song and feel what she's feeling... That's the most important thing to me.

A funny thing about choruses... Somehow, there's just something about being up there actually performing as opposed to just practising with yourself for an audience. Your instructor is despairing, everyone is missing their cues and getting the wrong notes, breathing in between words (our instructor hated that with a passion), and yet somehow, once
you're on stage things just come together. It may not be perfect, but sometimes the real performance helps pull something out of the group.

::hugs:: Good luck!

[orthent]

I think we'll need it! Tomorrow morning we have one last big rehearsal It's unnerving to realize that we have probably invested less time in this piece than in some of the shorter things we're doing. But what you've said is true--that when a piece needs to come together, it very often does. I've seen it happen, when everyone knows they have to give it their best, for there won't be another chance.

*hugs you back!*

[indongcho]

I just realised that it's Sunday, so at the moment you're probably at some point in the performance? I hope it went well!

Wishing you luck ::hugs::

[orthent]

Apparently, it went amazingly--just as you predicted, the combined choirs pulled a fantastic performance together at the last minute. Unfortunately for me, I was not a part of it--I woke up the night before with the 24-hour stomach flu, so I had to call in sick, and I'm sure I wasn't the only one; there's a lot of norovirus going around here, and nobody is going to stay home at finals time any longer than they can help, so there's very little to check the spread.

Still, I'll be singing with this group in the spring, and there will be other concerts. The year before last, the big spring concert was Handel's Messiah; last year, Carl Orff's Carmina Burana; it hasn't been decided what this year's is going to be, but both the directors like to push the envelope with new and challenging music. I shake my head now when I think of how little I liked this director at the beginning of the year, and how much respect I have for her now. At the beginning of the year, I felt that her demands on us made singing a stressful chore; now I feel