My Singing Sucks

I joined the community choir last night.

I did it because at my son's Christmas show the choral director implored parents to join, as this is a fledgling group. Plus, I've wanted to perform all my life but haven't had the nerve to do it. In the past couple of years, I've been in an "if not now, then when?" frame of mind, and this falls into that category.

I enjoyed performing in school (even got solos :) but haven't done anything like this since. I quickly realized that letting 25 years go by between performances is going to make this quite a challenge.
I used to be able to sight-read music. I say "used to" 'cause at this point, I can't with any degree of skill.
The choir instructor says I'll learn.

We ran through a bunch of show tunes--Blue Skies, What a Wonderful World, Somewhere Out There, and several others. We quite literally sped through them. Each time we finished, the instructor would exclaim "Very good!" Pause. "For the first time." Some of us suck so badly, it's really quite laughable (I of course, am in this group) and others have a slew of experience and ended up here for various reasons, mostly because there aren't many community choirs in the area--so in other words, by default.

Anyway, I knew quite a few of the tunes, but not these particular arrangements. As the woman next to me said, we know them the way we've sung along to them when we heard them before, not as they are to be performed here. So the process really is unlearn, then relearn.

I think the worst part though, besides not feeling at all competent, was a very loud soprano singer. As I was struggling along, gamely trying to manage my alto parts, her voice overpowered everyones and I found myself wandering into soprano territory, which is a very unfortunate place for my voice to go.

On the bright side, we are going to start doing "sectionals" next week. Each week one group of us will go to practice early to work on our parts only, and it's my lucky break that altos start first.
Wish me luck. Please.

Comments

[Cyn]

Thanks--the power of positive thinking can't hurt!

[Rose]

Good luck! :)

[Cyn]

Thanks to you both!
Christopher, my 11 y.o. who has been at this for several years, is going to go over some of my music with me this weekend--he's such a sweetheart. :)

[Vanessa]

Good luck!

[Whitesquirrel]

Well done.

This sounds so familiar. You will pick it the sight reading again in time and as they say practice makes perfect. A lot of it is also down to confidence. I'm an alto too and it used to take a while to feel confident enough to sing these more convoluted parts when you have loud warbly sopranos singing the tune over everyone else!! (they are usually people who sing solo sometimes and don't have the same appreciation of how to sing with other people)