Day 13 of 365 - The Joy of Singing - Part 1
When I was growing up we had an old upright piano in our living room. My mother had learned to play piano and organ as a young girl. She continued to enjoy it as a past time during her years of homemaking and raising a family. Often she would play from one of her songbooks and some of the children, usually the girls, would stand nearby singing and looking over her shoulder to read the lyrics.
Those were fun times for me and I enjoyed singing melody lines and sometimes trying a harmony. In elementary school I learned some basic sight reading of music and had some time in the school choir. But, most of my singing happened at home or at church.
I was raised as a Catholic and in my pre-teen and early teen years what were then known as folk choirs and now are better known as contemporary choirs came into vogue. Our small town choir seemed to have limited access to that spiritual music genre and struggled by with a limited number of hymns/songs. I can still see my mother rolling her eyes every time Fly Little White Dove Fly was sung as a hymn during mass.
My continued attendance at church over many more years was rooted in part to the experience of music and singing as part of the liturgy, first as a member of the congregation, and later as a member of the contemporary choir.
I joined the choir at my neighborhood church after my husband decided to attend services with me. He plays guitar very well, so he volunteered and I went along to sing. We went through more than a few leaders of that choir and eventually he took on the role. It was the late 80's by then and the repertoire of available music had increased considerably. Our church eventually had extra hymnals that were exclusively contemporary music which was approved for use in liturgy.
The numbers in our choir varied a lot over the years but was probably never more than 10 or so. Ironically, we seldom had members who had any vocal musical training. We did not do vocal warm up, but just went right into practicing our songs for that week when we met. We relied on following the musicians or learning from playing recordings at our practice sessions. I suppose most of the more serious singers tended to join the traditional choir, which had more rigorous musical standards.
I have a reasonable singing voice, a good ear for melody and a good memory for lyrics once I've learned them. So those are the skills I relied on to perform in the choir. I never did solo singing except for sometimes singing the psalm verses when our numbers were low.
After many years, we left that church due to the antics of a very eccentric pastor. We joined another larger church which also had a larger contemporary choir. My husband decided to join them but I chose to take a break from that and sang from the congregation instead. I never felt as much a part of that church community and, after a couple of years dropped out. My husband continued at that church for awhile and then another for a couple more years until he too decided to leave.
My life went from actively singing every week to almost none at all and it remained that way for many years. My husband has always played his guitar a lot at home so it wasn't as big a change for him.
Who knew that it would not be until almost my 6th decade that I would find a new singing experience that went beyond any previous expectations. Stay tuned for Part 2 tomorrow.
Those were fun times for me and I enjoyed singing melody lines and sometimes trying a harmony. In elementary school I learned some basic sight reading of music and had some time in the school choir. But, most of my singing happened at home or at church.
I was raised as a Catholic and in my pre-teen and early teen years what were then known as folk choirs and now are better known as contemporary choirs came into vogue. Our small town choir seemed to have limited access to that spiritual music genre and struggled by with a limited number of hymns/songs. I can still see my mother rolling her eyes every time Fly Little White Dove Fly was sung as a hymn during mass.
My continued attendance at church over many more years was rooted in part to the experience of music and singing as part of the liturgy, first as a member of the congregation, and later as a member of the contemporary choir.
I joined the choir at my neighborhood church after my husband decided to attend services with me. He plays guitar very well, so he volunteered and I went along to sing. We went through more than a few leaders of that choir and eventually he took on the role. It was the late 80's by then and the repertoire of available music had increased considerably. Our church eventually had extra hymnals that were exclusively contemporary music which was approved for use in liturgy.
The numbers in our choir varied a lot over the years but was probably never more than 10 or so. Ironically, we seldom had members who had any vocal musical training. We did not do vocal warm up, but just went right into practicing our songs for that week when we met. We relied on following the musicians or learning from playing recordings at our practice sessions. I suppose most of the more serious singers tended to join the traditional choir, which had more rigorous musical standards.
I have a reasonable singing voice, a good ear for melody and a good memory for lyrics once I've learned them. So those are the skills I relied on to perform in the choir. I never did solo singing except for sometimes singing the psalm verses when our numbers were low.
After many years, we left that church due to the antics of a very eccentric pastor. We joined another larger church which also had a larger contemporary choir. My husband decided to join them but I chose to take a break from that and sang from the congregation instead. I never felt as much a part of that church community and, after a couple of years dropped out. My husband continued at that church for awhile and then another for a couple more years until he too decided to leave.
My life went from actively singing every week to almost none at all and it remained that way for many years. My husband has always played his guitar a lot at home so it wasn't as big a change for him.
Who knew that it would not be until almost my 6th decade that I would find a new singing experience that went beyond any previous expectations. Stay tuned for Part 2 tomorrow.
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