Advent concert
Dec. 10th, 2006 09:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wiseheartWell, we had our Advent concert today. To be short and painless about it: it was bad. Really bad. Even though most of the audience didn't realize it - not even my own Mum who has a fairly good ear.
I've whined about the changes in our choir earlier, from a more selfish and personal POV. Now let me try a more objective approach.
Yes, having professional outsiders like a musician and a music teacher help us out could be useful. Yes, it's good when we have one of our own in mezzosoprano who could function under any circumstances, no matter what.
But. Singing in a choir should be a shared effort. Not "well, the professionals will sing whatever needs to be sung and the rest of you can jog after them". All right, we are not as good as these three. But we are the choir, basically, aren't we? So, perhaps we should try to return to last year's practice and simply train more with the individual voices. It worked well enough last year, without profis.
This year, Agnes and I who sung the tenor in Arcadelt's Ave Maria, didn't have a single chance to sing our voice alone, so that we could be sure we got it right. Instead, all of a sudden, we discovered during the concert that aforementioned music teacher also signs the tenor with us.
Well, let me tell you something: she might be a profi, and I never doubt that she can keep the tone better than either of us, but her voice is shrill and aggressive. If she is there, what are the two of us still needed for? Nobody would ever hear our voices below hers anyway.
Let me tell you something else: Agnes and I managed damn well without her in the rehearsals. Even without that much needed chance to sing our voice for us alone, without the other three voices. There was no need for that woman to switch voices. Granted, she did it because our choir leader asked her. It's not her fault, and I know that. It still makes me feel so damn expendable.
Another thing: when we started learning Deck the Halls and Joy for the World, Monica (our choir leader) had the splendid idea that I should sing the tenor voice, right away from the notes I saw the first time in my life, as we go. Just as the professional musician did with the bass. Well, guess how well that would go. I am not a music teacher or a professional musician. I'm just a layperson who happens to like to sing. I couldn't do it, of course - how in seven hells could I?
So, guess what happened? No, we didn't sit down to take a look and probably help me find my footing with a voice I was supposed to sing alone. No, we rejected the whole idea of having a tenor voice, I went back to contralto and tried to catch up with them as well as I could. No, the contraltos never had a chance to sing their voice alone, either.
As I see it, it works like this: there are the professionals and Marta who's almost one, and there is the rest of us. The sopranoes don't have profis or semi-profis among them, so they get their individual rehearsals. The rest of us is supposed to follow the profis as well as we can, on our own. The problem is, we can't do that very well.
And that is, IMO, why today's concert was total and utter crap. Because the rest of us wasn't trained well enough, and you just can't fill an entire church with the voices of three or four people. We were insecure and nervous, and so we made mistakes. Stupid mistakes. For my part, I managed to restart one of the pieces at the wrong place. The fact that I didn't dare to sing loud enough for it to be realized by the audience, doesn't change anything.
Other people made other mistakes. And many of us were unhappy with the results, even though the audience actually liked the concert.
I'm disappointed and unhappy about these changes, too. And I'm seriously thinking about whether or not I should remain in the choir for the following year. I won't leave them now, that wouldn't be fair, but next year... I don't know. If there's no joy in it anymore, it's not worth to sacrifice my spare time for it.
I've whined about the changes in our choir earlier, from a more selfish and personal POV. Now let me try a more objective approach.
Yes, having professional outsiders like a musician and a music teacher help us out could be useful. Yes, it's good when we have one of our own in mezzosoprano who could function under any circumstances, no matter what.
But. Singing in a choir should be a shared effort. Not "well, the professionals will sing whatever needs to be sung and the rest of you can jog after them". All right, we are not as good as these three. But we are the choir, basically, aren't we? So, perhaps we should try to return to last year's practice and simply train more with the individual voices. It worked well enough last year, without profis.
This year, Agnes and I who sung the tenor in Arcadelt's Ave Maria, didn't have a single chance to sing our voice alone, so that we could be sure we got it right. Instead, all of a sudden, we discovered during the concert that aforementioned music teacher also signs the tenor with us.
Well, let me tell you something: she might be a profi, and I never doubt that she can keep the tone better than either of us, but her voice is shrill and aggressive. If she is there, what are the two of us still needed for? Nobody would ever hear our voices below hers anyway.
Let me tell you something else: Agnes and I managed damn well without her in the rehearsals. Even without that much needed chance to sing our voice for us alone, without the other three voices. There was no need for that woman to switch voices. Granted, she did it because our choir leader asked her. It's not her fault, and I know that. It still makes me feel so damn expendable.
Another thing: when we started learning Deck the Halls and Joy for the World, Monica (our choir leader) had the splendid idea that I should sing the tenor voice, right away from the notes I saw the first time in my life, as we go. Just as the professional musician did with the bass. Well, guess how well that would go. I am not a music teacher or a professional musician. I'm just a layperson who happens to like to sing. I couldn't do it, of course - how in seven hells could I?
So, guess what happened? No, we didn't sit down to take a look and probably help me find my footing with a voice I was supposed to sing alone. No, we rejected the whole idea of having a tenor voice, I went back to contralto and tried to catch up with them as well as I could. No, the contraltos never had a chance to sing their voice alone, either.
As I see it, it works like this: there are the professionals and Marta who's almost one, and there is the rest of us. The sopranoes don't have profis or semi-profis among them, so they get their individual rehearsals. The rest of us is supposed to follow the profis as well as we can, on our own. The problem is, we can't do that very well.
And that is, IMO, why today's concert was total and utter crap. Because the rest of us wasn't trained well enough, and you just can't fill an entire church with the voices of three or four people. We were insecure and nervous, and so we made mistakes. Stupid mistakes. For my part, I managed to restart one of the pieces at the wrong place. The fact that I didn't dare to sing loud enough for it to be realized by the audience, doesn't change anything.
Other people made other mistakes. And many of us were unhappy with the results, even though the audience actually liked the concert.
I'm disappointed and unhappy about these changes, too. And I'm seriously thinking about whether or not I should remain in the choir for the following year. I won't leave them now, that wouldn't be fair, but next year... I don't know. If there's no joy in it anymore, it's not worth to sacrifice my spare time for it.
