I did my part to spread some Christmas cheer yesterday:  I sang loud for all to hear.  And I watched the movie “Elf” (for the 4th time) with my daughter.  (For those not familiar with the movie, it’s cute and my first line is a quote from it….)

But getting back to my singing….I did it!  I followed through with my commitment to sing a cantata with my church choir (see my blog in which it was questionable: http://www.thepwcinc.com/blog/archives/mercy-quitting ).  It was truly a humbling experience for me.  I had always thought I had a decent voice, although not consistent.  Being surrounded by experienced singers, even some professional ones, REALLY highlighted just how inconsistent I am!  If I hit one note in 3 measures, it was a good session!  And let’s not even go there with the words.  These were all in Latin, something I managed to never study.  The director kept scolding us for using dipthongs.  I didn’t even know what that meant…

Saturday we had a dress rehearsal with the orchestra – a lovely 7 piece string group.  I knew I was really in trouble when I realized due to my height that I would have to stand in the first row.  I had thought maybe I could hide behind the real singers and get away with it.  Now not only would everyone see me but the director REALLY could give me the evil eye.  I felt I was trying every ounce of his patience and good Christian values.  I was trying not to take it personally when he announced he was quitting after only being there 4 months.  Seriously.

The other thing besides my singing ability I was worried about was my facial expressions.  I realized that all during rehearsal I had been rolling my eyes or grimacing every time I did something wrong.  In other words, frequently.  Probably not a good thing for someone in the front row of the choir to be doing.   I was glad we had a dress rehearsal so that I could practice being facially neutral as well.  It wasn’t easy…

Sunday came and I was a bit nervous.  It did help that the minister told me I looked good in my robe.  Well, the purple stoll did work well with my hair color.  I could only hope others would focus on that rather than actually look at my face.  I wore my new contacts to look especially stunning – and then realized that I had not brought my reading glasses and could not actually see the words of the song.  Great.  And to make matters worse, it was a packed house.  Who knew that many people would come to church?  What happened to the days of empty pews?  Didn’t these people have more important things to do like, sleeping or shopping or getting ready to watch a football game?

What helped me in the end was realizing this really was NOT about me.  It was a gorgeous church, beautifully decorated for Christmas, and lovely music was to be performed by an amateur choir accompanied by professional musicians.  I decided this would be as close to Broadway as I was going to get so why not make the best of it and “fake it till you make it”.  I decided to pretend I was as good a singer as the woman soloing next to me and if nothing else, I looked good in the robe!

So even though I could not see the words, nor pronounce them correctly, or even hit every note, I sang my heart out.  Only once did I jump back into my head and start to panic, but was able to quickly let it go.  The words of a very sweet choir member kept ringing in my head “its not about the individual voice, but how you can blend with the others to make it bigger and better”.  I think I could do that.  And the result was that the blending of the voices was beautiful and uplifting and I didn’t grimmace once, at least not that I know of.

They asked me to sing on Christmas Eve as well.  Well, hey, you never know…

Answer:  Motherhood, being a woman, talking with a Midwestern accent when in the Midwest

Question:  What do Sarah Palin & I have in common?

I was talking with my sister yesterday and bemoaning the fact that I had choir practice that evening.  This is not because it was one more thing to do on a long list of to dos, or that it was a cold, wet night and a good one to stay in and watch my favorite “Must See” TV shows.  No, it was because deciding to join my church choir has been a glaring reality check for me and a very humbling experience.

Throughout most of my school years I sang with our church choir.  I loved it.  I loved the songs, the robes, the standing up in front of the congregation.  For a midwestern girl, it was about as close to Broadway I could get.  I even continued into adulthood for a while, garnering a small but very important (in my world) solo.  I love to sing and think of myself as relatively ok at it, although it varies from day to day or phrase to phrase at times.  That is, until I joined this choir.

I joined my church 20 years ago with the expectation that I would join the choir, which at the time was large, wonderful and full of professional singers.  Somehow I got sidetracked and never made it.  We just got a new choir director this year and he put out an appeal for singers to join the choir for a special Cantata to be performed at Christmas.  It was a 6 week commitment, a good way to dip the toe back in the pond, and with a big gulp, I accepted the challenge.  It was NOT what I anticipated!

The first night I showed up and unbeknownst to me, they had cancelled practice.  However, there was one woman there – who teaches singing no less – who volunteered to stay and take me through it.  Yikes.  No throngs of people to hide behind!  Not only is the music difficult, but it is in Latin!  If mercifully I managed to hit a note, my brain was still struggling to figure out the word associated with it.  Three weeks into this and I am only slightly better.  I realized that over those past 20 years, among other things, my voice has dropped and I instinctively sing things an octave lower than they should be sung.  You can’t quite do that in a choir situation.  So between me trying to hit a high note and trying to remember that it is pronounced “AHHH-bra – ham”, not “A-bra-ham”, it is a stressful experience.  Gone now are any illusions of my being a Broadway star in this lifetime.

So, I mentioned to my sister that really, to be kind to the choir, I should quit.  She said, “Ah, a mercy quitting.  You’re just like Sarah Palin.”

Enough said.  Come see me sing with the choir in early December!