Blue Ridge
Vocal Connection
This was to be a special night for me as my girlfriend, Susan, was to make her debut as accompanist for Blue Ridge Vocal Connection. And she performed masterfully, if I do say so myself, like she’d been doing this all her life (which I learned on our way home that she sort of has).
As I’ve learned to do, I quickly gravitated to my new mentor, Joe, who always has pearls of wisdom for me. He encouraged me to think about my new music in three ways. First, he said, focus on the length or rhythm of the notes. Second, the pitch of the notes. And finally the words. He told me that when sight-reading a new piece of music, he’ll forget the words and just hum, picking up the rhythm and the notes. Once he knows what the song sounds like, he’ll begin learning the words.
Conductor Thomas showed us a video where a music coach had us do some humming drills, varying the loudness and the pitch, over and over, up and down, louder and quieter. His message to us, as I understood it, is that all of us possess the ability to sing and have the “equipment,” meaning the vocal cords and “plumbing” to make sounds. Then some of us only lack the skills and education.
Thomas split the choir and took us lower folks to the other room for rehearsals on Delta Dawn and High Barbaree. On a couple of occasions and much to my surprise, I actually heard pleasing sounds come from my throat. And with Joe’s help, I was improving at following along with the score and keeping track. I found myself often gravitating to the lead, the way I’ve heard the songs sung before, struggling to take the harmony. Something to work on.
We returned to the full choir and I had the pleasure of listening to the higher voices, and they sounded wonderful! And the pleasure of listening to Susan’s piano.
After the session ended, several members of the choir told me they enjoyed my first two blog entries. One woman told me she had been with the choir for two years, and prior to that “was a terrible singer.” Maybe there’s hope for me after all.
On our way home, Susan told me she’d been doing choir accompanying since high school, although not in recent years. And she has a pleasing voice, which I seem to enjoy more than she does. I envy and appreciate the gift she has of music.
Saturday I’m attending the day-long workshop with a personal coaching session from guest instructor Justin Stoney. Should be great fun and a fantastic learning experience!
Then on Sunday, I’m headed to Marion to attend a recording session where my friend Jack is hosting a number of musicians to sing his version of This Train, updated to fit our current political realities. So it’ll be a weekend of singing for me.
Stay tuned.