Absorbing music
One of my hobbies is choral singing. I’ve been in a choir since I was eight years old. Then, it was a very good girls’ school junior choir, and it was there I was introduced to harmony, singing ‘My Grandfather’s Clock’ I seem to remember. We progressed to Beatles’ numbers – I can still recall the arrangement of ‘Yesterday’ reworded to suit girls rather than boys (“Why he had to go, I don’t know, he wouldn’t say…”). I’ve since sung in choirs and choral societies at King Edward VI High School for Girls, Exeter University Singers, Bournemouth Symphony Chorus, The Rilstone Singers, the Harrogate (now Cranleigh) Choral Week, English Chamber Choir, Wimbledon Choral Society and, currently, Colchester Chamber Choir (www.colchesterchamberchoir.org).
My repertoire and ability to sight sing, i.e. sing directly from the page, improved dramatically whilst at University, partly because the choir included those actually studying music at degree level. We were expected to be able to sight sing. And because my skill level improved, given so much practice with those far better than me, I’ve continued singing as an enthusiastic amateur – but why the attraction?
Well, aside from a love of classical music, there’s something about performing live music that can be electrifying…in a good way. You can feel nervous because, after all those rehearsals, there’s now only one chance to get it right. The adrenalin is pumping, the engagement with the conductor is absorbing, the feeling of collective contribution is all-encompassing – each singer has their own important part to play in order to build the sound required.
And success in a live performance, recognised by the audience (believe me, a standing ovation is a powerful drug), comes down to hard work and learning beforehand. And that’s the interesting bit: musical rehearsals have the potential to be very dull, as the conductor picks the music apart and you sing certain pieces, or even phrases, again and again. But I’m rarely bored. There isn’t the chance to switch off or tune out. You have to put all your worries or thoughts to one side and focus on the here and now. You’re learning not just how the notes and music fit together but how to pronounce things in a particular way (Germanic versus Italianate Latin, for example), how to blend all the voices together to get the right sound, and even emotion, to perform the piece as the composer intended. Many of the conductors I’ve sung for also seem to have an encyclopaedic knowledge of the time a piece of music was written and intersperse rehearsals with historical or cultural snippets. All in all, it’s a fascinating process.
So, what I’m learning to do is apply that feeling of focus to the everyday. Sure, we’ve all sat in boring meetings and found our minds wandering to dealing with our inboxes, planning the evening meal, even booking our next holiday. Or is that just me? The trick, I’ve learned, is to acknowledge that you’re thinking about something else, re-engage with the matter in hand and achieve that focus.
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