Sing Of Good Things, Not Bad
2006-10-26, 15:53

It's weird, being on the other side of the equation.

Tuesday night was The Girl's first high school choir concert (she's in the freshmen choir), and I couldn't help but see the whole thing as bizarre, in that I was in the audience. I spent so much time when I was in high school on stage for plays and choir concerts, that it's still somewhat disconcerting (no pun intended) to be sitting in the audience, watching one of the kids performing. It's almost a Roshamon kind of thing, seeing the same story told from another perspective, as proud parent rather than performing student. Just imagine what choir directors with kids in choir have to go through, shifting between performer, director and audience. 'Bearnstein Bears and Too Many Perspectives', if you ask me.

And to make matters even more disorienting, the director for the Mixed Symphonic choir (the best of the best in choral terms) is the same man who was director for me (and my brother) when I was in high school -- at least until my senior year, when he defected to the school he's at now for a pay raise (damn his soul!), leaving myself and the rest of the Seniors, who worked so hard to make ourselves the top high school choir in the state and one of the top in the nation, to flounder through a terrible year with a temp director.

Nonetheless, his directing influence still resides in my psyche; while his choir performed, I could feel the performance section of my brain click on: feeling all the subtleties of the performance; reading all the notes and subtext written across sheets of music to enhance the singer's understanding of the song; catch each pianissimo, sforzando and fortissimo, each coordinated consonant that, knowing from experience, took hours to perfect. It reminded me of how much I enjoyed the choral experience, one of the few times that I found myself actively becoming one with a whole, a piece of a beautiful puzzle. I've not experienced anything like that on a group level since, not to that degree, and I consider myself lucky to have been a part of it. I suppose I should thank the man for that much, even if he did abandon us at our peak. Since he's going to be retiring this school year, I suppose I should take the opportunity while I still have it. There's always the Christmas concert.

Elsewhere on the singing front: It's about time I finally did something beneficial with my voice.

Our neighbor is assistant directing a community production of Inherit the Wind right now (starts Friday at a theatre near me, but probably not near you), and she told us that some of the cast and crew were going out after a tech rehearsal to a bar in town, and that said bar was having a karaoke contest going on. Also it was her birthday, so we should at least go buy her a birthday margarita. We did. After getting Laurana and The Boy in bed and assuring their observation by a qualified babysitting specialist, we went to said bar. I nursed a beer over the course of two hours, and H had the waitress cook up something made with tequila that wasn't a margarita for a change.

We sang. Here's my playlist (singlist?) for the evening:

• Let's Dance by David Bowie -- a new one for me and, while I sang it fairly enough, it's not a great karaoke song - too much vocal effect required to make it sound right;
• Somewhere Only We Know by Keane -- also new for me, and it went well;
• At This Moment by Billy Vera and the Beaters -- one of my standards, and for good reason; and
• With or Without You by U2 -- another standard - I kicked its ass.

By the time I got to my second song, the 'competition' had officially started. Basically you just did your thing and a judge picked the six people he/she liked to move on to the semifinals. H and I both made the cut, naturally, as did our neighbor. Really there was only one guy there that gave me any serious competition worry (he made the six as well), but by the end of the evening I was sure I was the better singer. I certainly got a good response from 'At This Moment', and a couple of people pulled out lighters concert-style for U2. Sometimes I remember that I can sing.

So like I said, it's on to the semifinals, whatever that means. We're going to get a call from the DJ about when we sing next (there's a couple more weeks or so of preliminaries). Grand prize is a trip for two to Las Vegas. Part of me says if we win we should see about getting the cash equivalent and paying down debts. Then again, we've been saying how we really want to see Vegas at least once. Time will tell, and I shouldn't be counting chickens. But suffice to say, if this goes well, it may lead me down the path of further competition. I wouldn't mind singing my way into debt freedom. Or at least a new (badly needed) computer.

What I don't know about is proper etiquette for karaoke competition. Is it okay to sing songs again for another round? Will it hurt my chances if I repeat something? Should I vary the repertoire? I have no idea. Maybe I'm overthinking the whole thing. Certainly I've never done that before. Maybe I should just go and sing and see what happens.

Laurana did a little singing of her own last night. We got home at about 1230am, and I did my now habitual peek in at the baby before going to bed. Normally she's a heavy sleeper, but this time I had no sooner set one foot into her room that she shot up in her crib and started a soft, pathetic and tired cry. She's got a cold and not been feeling well at all the last couple of days, with a runny nose and what she calls a 'head boo-boo', a k. a. - we think - a headache. She hasn't been pulling at her ears or anysuch, so I don't think it's an ear infection.

Anyway, she spent about a half an hour singing a monotone wail that went from quiet to ear-piercing and back again. I'd say it was me peaking in that woke her up, but I get the feeling that she would have been up anyway soon, and it's better that we were still up and around to deal with it, rather than having to drag ourselves out of bed for her later, which would have been much worse. As it was, we didn't get to sleep until almost 2am (late night rewards for quality singing were handed out over the last half hour), so I'm suffering a bit today. I did manage a half hour nap at lunch, but that's only getting me so far. Early to bed tonight, if at all possible.

-- End Transmission --