After months of being cajoled by the choir director, I finally made the decision to start singing again. I haven't been in a musical group for 40 years and my voice (second soprano) is sadly in need of a tune-up. Hence, my reluctance to join, though I love to sing and the choir director is a professional (plus she teaches at a nearby college, and is an honor graduate of a conservatory).

We are working on several musical pieces. The one for next Sunday is a hymn with a calypso rhythm and melody. It is so much fun to sing! I was doing fine, syncopation and high notes and all, until the director stopped us to work on the rhythm for singers jumping in too soon (what part of "rest" don't they understand?). The upshot was that, as soon as I started thinking about it, I lost the rhythm myself, and much hilarity ensued.

Almost as much fun as what we did in the next song, where the altos lost their place and just sang notes that went with the chording. Well, at least they sounded all right, though they weren't singing what the printed notes said they should. Hey, it's a note, right? It sounds ok, right? So what's the problem here? Well....

Some can sing; some can read music; some can do both. I am so out of shape vocally that I sing very softly and after about an hour I'm so hoarse I can hardly speak, let alone sing. It will get better with practice, I know, so for now I just whisper the music. The music whisperer.

Each day now, I sing in the car on my way to work, just a little, to try to get it back. It's great to be singing again, even when the music is complex or soars into the soprano stratosphere or I can't find my glasses so I can't see the music. All of that pales in the joy of the moment.

Allelujah!