Turns out they want you to SING in these choir groups!
Music and Me
I had gotten about halfway into my rendition of “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on my Head,” when the music director said “Thank you!” That’s code for “Okay, we’re heard quite enough. No need to torment us any more.” Yeah, the performing arts is one great confidence booster after another. I kept stumbling forward though. Music lessons and classes helped. Again, most of my humble beginnings began at good ol’ LPC…
Las Positas College Music Program
Peaceable Kingdom – Chamber Choir
Directed by Jim Heiner, it was a show of chamber music. My first vocal concert. I think I memorized most of my music that time.
Requiem – Chamber Choir
Ah, chamber singing. And now it’s in Latin. I had enough trouble memorzing the English words. Good thing there’s six of us tenors. Bad thing that most of us were hoping the others would memorize the music. Good thing the show was free?
Chamber Choir
Ack! More Latin songs. Once again, we have six tenors so…well, I did memorize SOME of it! Uh oh, they requested $3 donations this time. I can’t be held responsible for that.
Valley Jazz In Concert – Jazz Choir
I’m doing the jazz singing now. I even had a solo (well, we all did since it was required). I sang “Body and Soul.” I also got to sing the lead in “Kiss Him Goodbye.” Though, not sure they’d let me do that again due to my improvised extended ending when the other singers had left the stage.
Valley Jazz In Concert – Jazz Choir
More Jazz choir. Our field trip was to get lost driving out to Columbia college. Okay, the getting lost part was optional, though we elected to do it anyway. That’s where I noticed the orchards of Cherry Blossoms an began my “That’s what it’s all about” phrase. Fortunately, we arrived just before showtime. I sang “Isn’t It Romantic” for the final concert. And no, it wasn’t romantic.
There was another Chamber Choir show that I did. I hardly studied at all for that one. It was The Messiah, too. Must have been a Christmas show. We were doing the show combined with the Concert Choir group. So the two groups mixed together. Our tenor forces joined up with theirs, etc. Right before the show, one of their tenors named Hans asked…
Hans: Hey, do you know the music pretty well?
James: Yeah, I think I got it down okay.
Hans: Okay, great. I’ll stand next to you so I can follow along.
James: Er, uh. Yeah, sure.
After the show…
Hans: I thought you said you KNEW the music?!?
James: Uh. Hey, I think they’re serving free food in the lobby. Gotta go!
The lesson? Don’t count on others to know the music.
At least don’t count on me.