Sing Out

In the fall of 2008 I took a class on Creative Non Fiction Writing taught by Brooke Bergen at University of Illinois Chicago. I had a heart attack that spring and was determined to do something for myself outside work. I talked it over with my board president and promised if it interfered with my job at YSB I would drop the class. Each Wednesday I’d leave work about 3:30, drive to Joliet where I’d catch the Metra train to LaSalle Street Station, ride the CTA Blue line to a stop near the UIC campus, and walk four blocks to where our class met. There was a great Vietnamese joint next to the building where class was held. If I got there early enough I’d have an entrée off their giant menu and a bubble tea or fruit smoothie. If not, I’d eat after. It made for a long night but it was the best night of my week. There were thirty or so people in my class and not a child welfare worker in the bunch. Most of the students were young. Their experiences varied widely as did their writing. I learned a lot. The class and the required writing assignments gave me purpose outside my work. When the class was over I felt something was missing. While I later found a way to incorporate regular writing into my job I lost my weekly break from the norm.

That’s when I joined choir at my church, First UCC at the corner of Columbus and Jackson in Ottawa. Choir practice is also on Wednesday night, 6:00 p.m., for an hour. I quickly began to look forward to it. As I did when I attended writing class, I scheduled around it. If a committee wanted to meet on Wednesday I just said “Sorry, I have choir” just like I used to say “sorry I have class.” And that was that. It was easier than I thought.

I was usually late to choir, which was not unusual. I was, and am, often late to many things. I’ve found it doesn’t matter nearly as much as we like to think. When I parked my car and made my way to the church I would usually hear the piano already playing upstairs in the choir room, and I’d look up and see the lights through the choir room windows. They guys sit in the back row. Sometimes I would see the head and shoulders of my choir mates and an empty spot where I usually sat. I’d start whistling the tune they were singing and continue as I climbed the stairs. I was always glad to be there. It became the new best night of my week.

I hadn’t sung in a choir since Junior High at the Presbyterian Church in Danvers. That choir was short lived. I think we wore out the choir director. The idea was for the junior high kids to later join the dwindling adult choir when they entered high school. That never happened. The adult choir remained a group of old women and a few old men and the high school kids wanted nothing to do with it. As junior high singers we saw practice primarily as a time to goof around. We were often loose in that big old church, swiping food from the kitchen, chasing each other through the basement, discovering dusty rooms we didn’t know existed. We sang in church from time to time, and as I remember the songs got simpler and simpler because we were so averse to real practice. We hated the robes. I feel sorry now for the woman who volunteered to be our leader. I’m afraid we made her look bad.

So when I joined choir forty five years later it was not as an experienced singer. In fact, I can’t read music. I joined as someone who loved music and needed community outside work. I knew the people in the choir because I went to church with them. But I didn’t know how much I would come to enjoy being part of a group with a common purpose.

As far as the sheet music goes I thought perhaps I would learn more about the notes on the lines and the odd marks, symbols, and obscure foreign words that have for so long puzzled me. I haven’t. I know generally the notes go higher as they go up the parallel horizontal lines and lower when the reverse occurs. And I’ve learned that the notes not filled in must be held longer, as must the ones with dots behind them. But I’m completely thrown trying to figure out when to go back to pages previously sung, and when to drop out and not sing. So I keep a pencil in my folder and write “Don’t Sing” or “Sing Here” or “Back to Star.” I draw big stars at the beginning of the repeated parts. I don’t know why the music makers don’t do the same. I need sheet music for dummies. I mark up my music quite a bit. If I’m lucky, when we repeat a song in future years I get my own music back and I’m ready to go.

But in truth, the sheet music for me is mostly the words and I take my cues from the director and the people around me. It’s very hard for me to sing parts because I naturally want to go with those singing the melody. Once in a while I can find my note from the many piano notes that fill the practice room, but not often. So I train my ear instead to focus on the guy or guys beside me singing the same part and try hard to follow them, singing just a shadow, a millisecond possibly, behind them so I can hit the right note. If they go off on a bad tangent I go right with them.

When it all works, when we are singing harmony and hitting the right notes I hear us blend our voices into something that sounds so good, a sound none of us could create on our own, I get the real feeling of choir. I like being part of a bigger group, following not leading, blending not standing out, singing my part, making the group sound good as a whole. Sometimes it gives me goose bumps.

There are times when the lyrics are beautiful. Some of our choir pieces are taken from ancient biblical texts, some lyrics are modern, but when they do it right the song writers, whatever their inspiration or source material, put meaningful words and beautiful music together to create something that instrumental music or poetry alone can’t. I get emotional sometimes when I sing. And I sure as hell forget about whatever was bothering me as I drove towards the church. It’s hard to do it well, and I concentrate on doing it as well as I can. When I do so I leave my troubles behind. For at least an hour a week, life is all about music.

Not that we don’t still screw around some. Our choir practices generally have several periods of laughter, one of us poking fun of another, laughing at our mistakes, taking exception to some comment. It’s light hearted. They guys have fun in the back row as do the women up front. Sometimes the choir director asks us to get back to work but not often. We’re a fairly cooperative group for the most part. I for one am much improved since junior high. I may not have met the complete standard for adult maturity but I’m a lot closer than I once was.

The weekly practice pays off on the Sundays when we sing. Our purpose is to add meaning and by doing so enhance and be part of the worship experience for our church, which in the end is us and the people there on Sunday. If we’re lucky the lyrics coincide with the church calendar, the sermon, something going on in the church. We sing facing the people in the pews. They give us all the feedback we need. They like the songs we sing and the way we sing them. We can see it in the expressions on their faces. Do you hear live unamplified music in a small venue often? Do you sit within ten or twenty feet of a good piano or pipe organ and hear a skilled keyboard player crank out beautiful notes? Sometimes we bring in percussion-maracas, bells, tambourines, African drums. Sometimes we bring in accompanists-woodwinds, flutes, trumpets, strings. Those days are special, for those of us in the choir and those in the pews too. It’s like being in a nightclub without little tables and mixed drinks.

Being in church choir may be the closest I ever get to being in a band. Every practice and every performance makes me feel good. When we shut down in the summer I’m sorry it’s over and when we start up again in the fall I remember what a charge I get out of it. It is one thing to put music in your life, but it’s quite another to be part of putting music into the lives of others. I recommend it.