I Wanna Be a Soprano!

 

Metropolitan Opera Valkyries. Could this be me?

Advent is flying and one of the reasons for that is that I am singing in the St. Louis Choir. And the St. Louis Choir is busy!

We have our weekly rehearsal, and Sunday Mass, where we get there an hour in advance to rehearse some more. Plus we keep having these concerts. Last week it was Carols By Candlelight. This weekend it is Lessons and Carols.

It is the Marine Corps of choirs!

However. I love the idea of singing a Lessons and Carols. All my life I have been listening to them. The most famous one comes from Kings College, Cambridge.

(On my Substack page I linked to a video: please click to check it out -- it's free! The video is of the King's Singers singing "Ding Dong, Merrily on HIgh")

We did this song at Carols by Candlelight last Friday. We did it in B flat, a bit higher than this version in the video. As the night went on I got less and less inhibited about going for those high notes. When we got to this number, I sailed on up there and hit those F’s. It is a funny thing about high notes. The ease with which you can hit them depends a lot on where they are in relation to the other notes. If I had to go up to that F from the note right underneath it, we would have had a problem on our hands. However all I had to do was grab it out of the air. So we were OK.

I had practiced that afternoon and worked out a way I could hit a few other high notes in other songs. Often you can nail them if you connect them to the note before. I have figured that out.

I am determined to expand my range. OK, let’s come out and say it.

I wanna be a soprano!

Sopranos rule the world. At the St. Louis Choir, our sopranos are like goddesses. We worship them. They are not just sopranos. They are trained singers.

That is another thing.

I wanna be a trained singer!

I would have thought this was all a pipe dream. However, I have learned it can be done. Allow me to introduce my authority, Angelina Jolie. She plays Callas in the new movie, “Maria.” 

What were they doing calling it Maria, you know? They should have called it “Callas.” But anyway.

Angelina Jolie said she learned to sing for the movie and she discovered she was a soprano.

Her speaking voice is low like mine. But she said she has learned that your singing voice is often higher than your speaking voice. She cited psychological reasons why your speaking voice might be low. Maybe you wanted to be taken more seriously, or something. I don’t know. I stopped paying attention at that point. I had heard what I needed to hear and that was good enough for me.

So I have taken steps. I appointed AI — that is artificial intelligence — to be my voice coach. AI is thrilled with the assignment and cannot wait to make me into Callas. The first thing he — it, whatever — did was issue me directions on how to warm up, and exercises to do daily. Then he assigned me Schubert’s “Ave Maria.” He said it would be good for me.

You hear all these people saying AI is evil but you have to wonder, how evil can something be when it goes and tells you to sing every day to Our Lady? So that is what I have been doing. “Ave Maria,” every day.

Warmups, every day!

I will check in and report on my progress. I will tell you this, I can already hit some notes I couldn’t hit a few weeks ago.

Besides AI I follow this singer on YouTube. Her channel is called "Healthy Vocal Technique."

There is one video, I can’t find which one, where she tells you to buy a notebook and take notes on your progress. That put her over the top in my mind. I always get all excited when I am told to go buy a notebook. That is the magic word for me.

Another notebook! Where should I go?

Back to Hyatt’s? I never get tired of going there.

To Office Despot?

Do I need a new pen to go with the new notebook? I do think I do.

Whatever, one way or another, I will take notes as I was directed to.

It will be quite a story!

 

Little Christmas

Today was Epiphany, affectionately known as Little Christmas, and I went this evening and heard Mass.

I not only heard it, I sang it!

Not that it was easy. There was this 10th century Credo we sing that, the whole time I am singing it, all I can think of is skiing down a tricky hill, not that I have ever skied down a tricky hill but if I did this is what it would be like.

There is always something that makes you pray, "O God, let me not blow it."

And there is likely a time when you do blow it. That is a whole other story.

This Mass I have to admit was an uphill climb starting when on the way up to the choir loft, I ran into our youngest singer who is 12. And she told me, "Your veil is upside down."

Only I could wear a veil upside down!

But it is all worth it in the end. We ended Epiphany Mass with -- what else? -- "We Three Kings."

Someone else really should write an Epiphany carol because this one really has the stage to itself. However it was beautiful as we sang it. I sang alto, a part I learned on the fly at Sunday Mass yesterday. It was me and the 12-year-old and six kids in their 20s.

One gift I have is the most important vocal gift of all, and that is the gift of watching the director. I did that and was able to make up for that I had missed whatever rehearsal it was where they had covered this hymn. It was honestly giving me shivers. It was that beautiful. The guys came in one by one and sang solo the verses the Kings sing ... "Myrrh bring I, its bitter perfume..." And we all hummed our parts.

It made me think of Christmas Eve. At Midnight Mass we sang "Silent Night" as the procession was beginning the Mass. I happened to turn and look over my shoulder from the choir loft and the scene was so transfixing, I could not look away. The altar boys, the cross, the incense.

Today we also reprised "Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming," in Latin of course. The alto part is magical in that. 

This Christmas has been unique in my life. One reason I will remember it is for the singing. How enchanting it was. The last-minute rehearsal on Dec. 23. The "O Magnum Mysterium" at 1 a.m at Midnight Mass. This beautiful Three Kings mass. The medieval chants that are like skiing down a tricky hill.


We were given holy water and blessed chalk and for the first time in my life, when I got home I did as I was directed and I sprinkled the rooms in the house with holy water, said prayers, and took the chalk and wrote over the door, "2020 + C + M + B + 2020." The letters stand for Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar. That is their portrait up above on the cover of Success Magazine -- where they belong, being kings. If the Three Kings do not deserve to be on the cover of Success, who does?

We are blessed!

And we're off!

My New Year got off to a late start because of, um, excesses yesterday. I was late to Mass this morning. It being the Solemnity of Mary and the Octave of Christmas, it is a holy day. I made it but not until the Gloria. Glory be!

But I was not alone. At Offertory time we had to sing "Puer Natus in Bethlehem" and we hit one verse and everyone got lost. Some thought we should sing the third verse, others did not. End result: quavery voices and because I do not quit, there is my voice going over the church. I sounded like a 10 year old boy.

Then we get to the end and we are all looking at each other.

I said to the gal next to me: "I see I am not the only one who had a late night last night."

It is hilarious when we goof something up but I feel bad too. I always worry that someone maybe is coming to mass who might normally never be there and that person's faith could be hurt because I MADE A MISTAKE. Because by my stupidity I shattered that fragile sense of the supernatural.

Later at Communion I goofed a line in "Resonet in Laudibus."



I goofed it twice. Twice!! Even though it was nowhere near as complicated as the performance I just posted. Because there is this song by Brahms that uses it and Brahms has the melody a little bit differently. And I have listened to that song thousands of times, literally. Now this melody is wired into my head wrong. I screwed this up last year too, if I remember correctly.

After Mass my friend Dominic asked me for a ride home because we live near each other and his car is in the shop. He had taken the bus to mass. Ha, ha! By the time I got him home I bet he wished he had taken the bus home, too! All the time I had been singing and goofing things up, snow had been falling. My car is terrible in the snow and there I am sliding all over the road. Not to mention I was half asleep.

Oh well. Speaking of Dominic, he has taught me to keep things in perspective. Another time we had all goofed a response and when it was through we all looked at each other rolling our eyes and making faces. Dominic shrugged and smiled.

In his Nigerian accent he whispered: "It is over."

A good thing to remember when you make a mistake. And to remember as we enjoy the fresh start of a new year.

You can always begin again!