Okay, I admit it. Music has never been a deep passion with me. I love listening to it, but I've never devoted myself to the study and practice of musical performance.
I mean, sure, I had 6 years of piano lessons as a kid. My mom warned me when I quit that I'd regret it someday, that I might regret someday that I couldn't play in church when a pianist was needed. Since I hate performing in front of other people.... I have never regretted that.
I dabbled in choir in elementary school and middle school. But by the time I was 12, I was extremely self conscious of my voice. I remember distinctly a caroling trip I went on as a Beehive. I noticed that no matter where I went in the group, the people in front of me would glance back at me as I sang. In hindsight, this could have been for lots of reasons. I was typically towards the back of the group, and maybe they were looking for people from another car to arrive and looking at the road, not really at me. Or, they didn't notice my quiet stealthy self coming behind them, and they were startled to know I was there. It could have been a lot of things. Unfortunately 12 year old Shelece interpreted this as people judging me for singing badly, and I resolved to sing less in church. I would sing bits and pieces of the hymns, but trail off anytime I felt like I was off on a note, I would stop singing and mouth the words--which often meant skipping the high parts, the ends of lines, and sometimes even the beginning.
I did end up taking voice lessons from my aunt one summer, and though I learned a lot, I ultimately realized my heart wasn't in it. The kicker was when my aunt told me I could pick any church song I wanted, any song at all, to learn next. I went through the books and picked out... the Latter-day Prophets song. Why? Because I figured if I was going to learn a song, I might as well learn something useful like all the names of the prophets. My aunt allowed this, but later on, she admitted that she was very frustrated with my choice. She thought I'd pick something melodic and beautiful, but a song meant to serve as a memory device was... well, not what she was thinking of. That's when it occurred to me that I wasn't invested in music--it never occurred to me to pick a song because it sounded pretty and I wanted to sing it.
So fast forward a lot, and I fell in love with Trevor, who was born bleeding music from every pore. In our singles ward days, he launched a triward young single adult choir, and I came.... because I liked him. It was... all right. There were lots of choir newbies that he'd recruited. We didn't do any super hard songs. I lived in fear of days that I was the only soprano who showed up (I think that only happened once!), and I was super intimidated when our friend Daniel took over the choir directing, because his mom is a professional and he took things up a notch that was hard for me to meet. But he was still patient in teaching us very basic choir things that I didn't know--what the director's hand movements meant, what some of those weird Italian words meant on the page, etc. etc.
Trevor even got me to be part of some stake music choirs, which weren't so scary because the choirs were so big my voice didn't stand out. Although I learned quickly that choir is about critiquing the people around you to help the whole choir improve. People near me have often offered suggestions for me to improve. This is a normal thing, and their suggestions are helpful, but when I'm already terrified and self conscious, it just escalates the anxiety.
But in our new ward... oh man. Choir is on a higher level than I can possibly achieve. Almost everyone is super musical. They throw around music terms that I have no clue how to interpret but everyone else clearly gets it. We've been trying to learn Mormon Tabernacle Choir arrangements.... I am NOT a MoTab soprano!!! They go so impossibly high and I can't even touch it. I've been doing my best. I don't really read music, and I don't understand how to read parts. Other people can take an arrangement and look at it--they see which notes their part is, and off they go. I can't do that. Sometimes people will say something like, "Can you sing a high A?" I HAVE NO IDEA. I hear note names and I don't hear a corresponding noise in my head. I learn songs by listening to the music and trying to copy the people next to me. I realize I should raise my hand more and have them play my part, but I recognize that if I do that it's likely the Director will make us sing the part I'm confused about, and pay especial attention to my voice to see if I get it now.
Following other sopranos worked somewhat okay when I had a really strong singer next to me, but she has just moved away. Last week I skipped choir, and Trevor said no sopranos came. I was so grateful I didn't go. This week I was scared unto death to go because I thought I might be the only soprano there, but Trevor really really wanted me to go. So I showed up, and... there were 3 sopranos, me and two teenage girls. We did a warm-up. The Director brought out a MoTab arrangement he wants us to do that goes very very high. I noticed there were a few spots where sopranos sing alone, and I got very nervous. But things went worse than I ever imagined.... It was probably my fault (?!?!?!?). I mentioned that the timing at the end of the song was hard for me--all 4 parts sing amen at different speeds and a different amount of times, and I get lost almost every time. So we listened to a recording of the song twice, and then we tried to sing through it.
All 3 sopranos struggled so hard to hit the high notes, but I struggled more than any of them. (For any musically inclined people reading this... basically in this section we had to hit a high G and a high A.) And then.... the director's wife suggested that the sopranos should sing alone, since we were clearly a problem. So for the next
eternity 20 minutes or so, the entire choir listened to us as we struggled... I could NOT hit the high notes. I sounded squeaky and breathy and horrible. IT WAS MY WORST NIGHTMARE COME TO LIFE. Here I am in choir so people can't hear my voice much, and I'm being called upon to suck at singing while everyone else in choir listens to me. People tried to help us by offering changes to the music (that meant very little to me. Let's bring that one part down an octave--okay, I get that it won't be as high, but what note are we going for?). I was DYING. I did see a bit of humor--Trevor assured me that choir wasn't so bad, and then everything I ever feared about choir came true.
Fortunately... the Director soon realized that the Mormon Tabernacle Choir arrangement was far out of our reach, and had us sing "Nearer Our God to Thee". I could handle that... although I felt guilty that my failure was partially responsible for us switching to an easy song. He looked right at me as he said we'd switch to Nearer because it had a much smaller range and was easier to sing.
But at the same time.... I realized then that despite my newbieness and struggles, I'm not an awful singer. My guess is, the MoTab sopranos have an epic range. It's okay I don't. That doesn't mean I'm a failure. I am behind the curve of a lot of choir people because I'm just trying to learn this stuff at age 30.... but in a lot of ward choirs, that wouldn't be so out of place. There are ward choirs literally begging for people to join, experience or no.
It just so happens this choir is more advanced than that, and that's great! They can do a great job singing amazing musical numbers.... and I can listen from the audience and smile at them.
Or maybe I'll still hang in there, for Trevor's sake.... If we stick to Nearer My God to thee, I can handle that... Sorry to lower the quality of the choir, ward peoples! At least I'm trying to add my voice.
