Singing with the Choir

I absolutely love to sing... and I cannot carry a tune to save my life! That is not 100% accurate but close enough that no one is going to ask me to sing a solo, be in a duet or even in a double mixed quartet so..... I joined the ward choir!

Ward choir directors are usually begging for anyone to join so even though I don't have a great voice, I am a warm body and if nothing else, I do take up space and make the choir look larger. There are no auditions to join and everyone always makes nothing but "constructive criticism" kind of comments and they are never directed at an individual so I feel very safe joining in. In fact, everyone is very excited and welcoming when a new face shows up.

I think Christmas music is so wonderful. It just brings the spirit of the season straight into my heart, especially the spiritual Christmas songs. Every year at Sacrament meeting on the Sunday before Christmas the program is under the direction of the ward choir. Beautiful songs are sung and the Nativity story is told through the scriptural accounts and it is always a spiritual experience. Some years I have sung in the choir and some years I have sat in the congregation and I've decided I like being a part of the program much better than just listening to the program.

I dropped out of the choir a few years ago because the choir director was a perfectionist. She has a beautiful soprano voice and she can sing those piercingly high notes that make you sit up straight and marvel but she always chose songs that were so difficult that I would come home from choir practice and not be able to talk for 3 hours.

Some people are afraid of heights or water or snakes... I'm afraid of choir directors. Back when I was in college at BYU I did a semester abroad to Salzburg, Austria. There were about 90 females and about 4 males in our group. We lived in a hotel and took college-credit classes in world history, German and of course, religion. Part of the curriculum also was an all-women's choir. The highlight of the semester was a performance of "The Messiah" by our choir at the Mozarteum complete with a local orchestra. Tickets were sold and posters where posted around the city advertising this prestigious event. Our choir director was a music professor and he took his music VERY seriously!!! One day during our class time as we were practicing singing, he kept stopping the choir and asking who was ringing a bell. No one knew what he was talking about... no one had a bell. Then I noticed that I was wearing a charm bracelet and it did infact have a bell charm on it. I immediately removed it as stelthfully as I could and put it in my pocket. It must have been me because he didn't stop us any more. I also used to sing along until he would look over in my general direction and then I would just mouth the words. I was constantly in fear of being singled out and embarrassed.

But things have changed this year for me. Our ward has a new choir director. It is another man but this guy doesn't take the whole choir-thing so seriously and the music he chooses is not such high notes for the sopranos. I like to sing soprano because it is usually just the melody and it is easier to keep myself on tune that way. At today's practice, our director used the best analogy while talking to the tenors and basses. He told them their parts were like shooting a 3-pointer while playing basketball. He said you can't just throw up the shot and then just watch it, you have to get right on to the next move of going for a rebound or going for the next play which was the same as the notes they were singing. It wasn't so much what he said, just that he knows how to relate to the members of his choir! So far I haven't had to mouth any of the words but I do sit next to the previous choir director and let her sings all the high notes!