Musical cliffs, or clefs anyway
Nov. 10th, 2005 02:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
celticdragonflySo I mentioned exciting stuff yesterday? Well, it's exciting to me, anyway.
I joined a local choir last night. Now, this is nothing like the level of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
joyeuse13 and abovenyquist's choir, which has auditions and does big public performances and tours of Europe, no no. But it's still a big step for me, and I feel a bit like I've jumped off a cliff into the deep end.
I'd been thinking about this off and on for a while. I got encouragement from a friend recently to believe my voice was worth learning more about singing, and then last week heard the music director doing really great stuff with the choir and a cool arrangement of his own and a brass section. So I congratulated him about it afterwards and said I was interested, and he said come on by.
So yesterday we went to the usual Wednesday Cafe dinner and Maggie to her weekly Adventure Club. (I love Wednesdays. I can always get her to nap obediently just by telling her that if she doesn't, no Adventure Club.) Dinner went well, I stuck to my resolution and introduced myself to a couple that sat down near us. Got their names, gave ours, did my usual warning of how terrible I am at learning names, please be patient with me. Met their (his? hers? dunno) mother later. Turns out they have a little girl who's in Maggie's class and apparently likes Maggie and follows her around. Figures - Maggie knows the adults' names but not the other kids, little Emma apparently knows the kids' names but not the adults. So meeting other people with kids the same age is really good. Turns out the mother and grandmother were both in choir, too, over in the large loud clump of sopranos.
So as soon as I finished dinner I was up and walking around in the hall some - can't sit too long without hurting, after all. I saw Victor, the music director, came in. I told him I was interested in learning about joining choir. I was mostly thinking that I'd be told sure, they'd see how well I sang, or they'd be taking new people in January or something. No. He took my hand, said come sing! Asked me what I sang, soprano, alto? I said LOW. He said fine, he'd put me in the altos. Could I read music? Well, yeah, slow though. Fine, great, come at 7!
So, I did. Felt terribly nervous. There was a lady teaching a kids' choir that stopped when we got there, she then sat down with the main choir, in the altos. Once I'd been given a folder and had Victor dig out a bunch of music to put in it, he sat me down by her. She's Morgan. And apparently she's the equivalent to my sisterphoenixsinger, who went through high school choir year by year in whatever section they needed a strong voice in. Morgan was singing with the altos, but sometimes when he was practicing stuff with the tenors she was singing with them, sometimes with the sopranos. (Heck, at one point she was singing with the tenors, and I thought hey, that's all in my range, and it's COOL - and I softly was singing with the tenors myself. I don't know much about vocal music, but I do sing awfully low.)
They started out practicing some Advent vespers, and I could sight read that and sing along just fine, that was fun. Ha. Shoulda realized of course I can do that, that's the level of stuff they hand everybody. Then they started in on the tough stuff.
The next piece of music - oh dear, it kept changing keys, and it kept changing time signatures! Amazingly complex. And then there was a piece of Bach that stayed nicely in one key and time signature, but was still a VERY complex piece of music. My ears were trying to go in five different directions, and there were these really strong sopranos in my right ear. They practiced a couple more pieces of music after that, not as complex but still complex to me.
Mostly sitting for an hour and a half really hurt and wiped me out. Karl and the kids came in when they were finishing - Maggie came running in to see me. She was also enthralled by Ty, Victor's little puppy.
I brought the music home, and I'm starting to plug it into Finale Notepad so I can hear just the alto line. We'll see how that goes. I don't know if I can learn this sort of thing on my own or not. I've never done this level of music, I don't have the training, and I've been picking up what I can of musical theory here and there in bits.
I'm thinking I may want to upgrade to a higher level of Finale other than just the freebie Notepad level. Either the Songwriter level or possibly PrintMusic, that's on sale. Anybody else out there who uses it? I've already askedbkseiver for opinions. If you want to see what the versions are, go here http://www.finalemusic.com/notepad/plus/index.asp and see where it says "Find the best notation software solution for you! Click here to see a basic feature comparison chart of all our notation products."
I joined a local choir last night. Now, this is nothing like the level of
joyeuse13 and abovenyquist's choir, which has auditions and does big public performances and tours of Europe, no no. But it's still a big step for me, and I feel a bit like I've jumped off a cliff into the deep end. I'd been thinking about this off and on for a while. I got encouragement from a friend recently to believe my voice was worth learning more about singing, and then last week heard the music director doing really great stuff with the choir and a cool arrangement of his own and a brass section. So I congratulated him about it afterwards and said I was interested, and he said come on by.
So yesterday we went to the usual Wednesday Cafe dinner and Maggie to her weekly Adventure Club. (I love Wednesdays. I can always get her to nap obediently just by telling her that if she doesn't, no Adventure Club.) Dinner went well, I stuck to my resolution and introduced myself to a couple that sat down near us. Got their names, gave ours, did my usual warning of how terrible I am at learning names, please be patient with me. Met their (his? hers? dunno) mother later. Turns out they have a little girl who's in Maggie's class and apparently likes Maggie and follows her around. Figures - Maggie knows the adults' names but not the other kids, little Emma apparently knows the kids' names but not the adults. So meeting other people with kids the same age is really good. Turns out the mother and grandmother were both in choir, too, over in the large loud clump of sopranos.
So as soon as I finished dinner I was up and walking around in the hall some - can't sit too long without hurting, after all. I saw Victor, the music director, came in. I told him I was interested in learning about joining choir. I was mostly thinking that I'd be told sure, they'd see how well I sang, or they'd be taking new people in January or something. No. He took my hand, said come sing! Asked me what I sang, soprano, alto? I said LOW. He said fine, he'd put me in the altos. Could I read music? Well, yeah, slow though. Fine, great, come at 7!
So, I did. Felt terribly nervous. There was a lady teaching a kids' choir that stopped when we got there, she then sat down with the main choir, in the altos. Once I'd been given a folder and had Victor dig out a bunch of music to put in it, he sat me down by her. She's Morgan. And apparently she's the equivalent to my sister
phoenixsinger, who went through high school choir year by year in whatever section they needed a strong voice in. Morgan was singing with the altos, but sometimes when he was practicing stuff with the tenors she was singing with them, sometimes with the sopranos. (Heck, at one point she was singing with the tenors, and I thought hey, that's all in my range, and it's COOL - and I softly was singing with the tenors myself. I don't know much about vocal music, but I do sing awfully low.) They started out practicing some Advent vespers, and I could sight read that and sing along just fine, that was fun. Ha. Shoulda realized of course I can do that, that's the level of stuff they hand everybody. Then they started in on the tough stuff.
The next piece of music - oh dear, it kept changing keys, and it kept changing time signatures! Amazingly complex. And then there was a piece of Bach that stayed nicely in one key and time signature, but was still a VERY complex piece of music. My ears were trying to go in five different directions, and there were these really strong sopranos in my right ear. They practiced a couple more pieces of music after that, not as complex but still complex to me.
Mostly sitting for an hour and a half really hurt and wiped me out. Karl and the kids came in when they were finishing - Maggie came running in to see me. She was also enthralled by Ty, Victor's little puppy.
I brought the music home, and I'm starting to plug it into Finale Notepad so I can hear just the alto line. We'll see how that goes. I don't know if I can learn this sort of thing on my own or not. I've never done this level of music, I don't have the training, and I've been picking up what I can of musical theory here and there in bits.
I'm thinking I may want to upgrade to a higher level of Finale other than just the freebie Notepad level. Either the Songwriter level or possibly PrintMusic, that's on sale. Anybody else out there who uses it? I've already asked
bkseiver for opinions. If you want to see what the versions are, go here http://www.finalemusic.com/notepad/plus/index.asp and see where it says "Find the best notation software solution for you! Click here to see a basic feature comparison chart of all our notation products."
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-10 09:40 pm (UTC)I have Finale 2000 right now. I used to be tech support for the fine arts computer lab in college, too, so I'm pretty darn good with the program. If you need help, let me know.
And don't be so hard on yourself. I have a degree in music, and I have a hard time singing alto lines on first sight. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-11 04:25 am (UTC)The complexity of the music ...
Date: 2005-11-11 04:40 am (UTC)It wasn't until I was handed the material on preparing for the final concert that I realized I had mistakenly been attending choir for vocal majors all year. I was so impressed and thrilled that I had managed to keep up well enough that no one had noticed!
Re: The complexity of the music ...
Date: 2005-11-11 05:34 am (UTC)I do have something of a feeling that the people in this choir may all be at that level, and are assuming that since I've come and asked to join, hey, I'm at that level, too, right? Um. No.
Hi, have we met? The name sounds like it ought to be familiar, but I'm not sure who you are and the profile didn't help. (And my brain is foggy tonight anyway - tired and hurting and I took a Big Pain Pill.) Hi!
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-10 10:51 pm (UTC)Oh, and congrats for stretching yourself and joining the choir!
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-10 11:19 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-10 11:19 pm (UTC)I'm dipping back into 'regular' choir also, for the holiday season.
Our music minister distributed practice-cd's, which contain a background recording of the whole piece, and an overlaid sound-boosted track of the part I am supposed to be learning. They help a LOT, because you can replay the tricky parts OVER AND OVER until you learn them.
You might want to re-locate yourself to get more deeply embedded in the alto section, so you won't get distracted by the strong sopranos.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-11 04:33 am (UTC)GAFilk songbooks. Right. Darn. I was actually considering offering something up for that - although honestly I don't understand what songs go into these things or what's appropriate to offer. But then there was this surgery thing, and now I've missed the deadline. Oh well.
I'm using Finale to play the whole alto part over and over. I've only got part of one song in there so far - Finale is not fast to use, especially while juggling kids and only able to sit for limited periods.
I did ask about getting farther over on the alto side, and Morgan said no problem. Although honestly I don't know if I am an alto - I sing really low, I'm wondering if I'm too low for alto.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-11 04:58 am (UTC)She's very nice, a music teacher by day-job, and would probably greatly enjoy having her brain picked about her favorite toy.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-11 05:30 am (UTC)I may ask her. I'm not sure how to phrase questions. Some of it is I don't have experience with any music notation software EXCEPT the freebie level of Finale - and I don't have a lot of experience with writing music, or a high level of understanding music theory. And honestly, I can't figure out how to get the latter - how do people get that, short of going off and getting a degree in music?
Music Theory 101
Date: 2005-11-11 12:47 pm (UTC)Have I got a snailmail addy for you?
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-12 06:27 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-12 06:30 am (UTC)Godspeed.
Date: 2005-11-12 06:43 am (UTC)But, in the brief period before it became clear that I was Not An Asset, I got to try: Isn't it exhilarating--?!
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-12 11:40 pm (UTC)