Christmas shenanigans

Last week kept me on my toes. It was Christmas week, which is a pretty musically busy time. Somehow, I not only got through it -- I aced it with flying colors, and have videos to prove it.

Here's one of the videos of my choir performing at our Adoration service.



We had two performances. They did really, really well. I had so many people tell me how it touched them, how beautiful it was. It's just another way for God to show how beautiful His love is, to give us music and art that touches us in ways we cannot explain.

When I showed up to warm up the choir, I was approached by my pastor -- "do you play bass?" I really have no actual experience playing the bass, but... it's just a jumbo guitar without the top two strings. So I ended up playing a few carols along with the worship team. Honestly, I do enjoy having a little odd challenge thrown my way. Something that takes me out of my comfort zone. You don't get very far by staying within that particular zone.


Annnnnnd here's the video of my arrangement of 23 carols mushed into 4 minutes.



I threw this together on a Thursday, Shane's show was Saturday, and I recorded this the following Wednesday. I would have done it a little differently with more time, but it was a fun little project, anyway. And it turns out, my camera takes half-decent videos, which might lead to more videos in the future...

Brute Honesty.

Brute honesty is a fine art. A fine art like smashing your mother's heirloom vase with a sledgehammer.

But seriously, it's important. I have a mentor who speaks into my life periodically and the thing I love about it is the sledgehammer of cold, hard truth. I tell her what I hope to accomplish. We plan, we reason out. And then she sledgehammers me when she talks to me a month later and I haven't really done anything.

We all need people with sledgehammers in our lives, but they also should be A) invited to do so and B) sensitive and sympathetic to the confusion of constructive deconstruction (that is to say, willing to help you pick up the pieces). Thank God that mine is.

Essentially, I grow a little (actually get students! play at a few places!), get complacent, convince myself that I'm tired and then stop. The tiredness is inevitable. The complacency is the problem. You can work through being tired if you are convinced that you must do something.

My stonewall always ends up being this notion that what I do as a musician is not important. It's rooted in one or two insensitive things that folks said to me a long time ago (and probably do not remember ever having said). But really, despite my confusion, despite not knowing why I do it -- music comes out of me. So lately, I just pray to be healed of that stuff. Life will go a lot smoother if a crazy music lady can just allow herself to believe that there is meaning in the crazy music she makes, though she may never know the full extent of that meaning.

And that's the truth. SLEDGEHAMMER'D

Choir director? Who, me?

I love my choir. It's great to bring people together to sing. But choir directorship is not something I ever would have imagined for myself.

From what I can recall, I hated my voice when I was a kid. The way it sounded was just really repulsive to me. I knew that I could carry a tune, but I believed that the quality of my voice was so terrible that I should do everyone a favor and just shut up.

So when I got to college, I wanted a music degree. Fine, they said. You'll have to join a large ensemble. And guess what? There's no large ensemble for classical guitar, so... you'll be in Women's Glee, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from noon to one.

Apparently, nobody had informed them of the horror that was my vocal quality. So I just bit my tongue, accepted my fate, and figured on lip syncing my way through four years of college.

Turns out you sing a lot, if you're a music student. Even outside of Women's Glee, there were ear training classes where you had to sing different musical intervals, eventually building up to sight-singing in solfege. (You know... Do, Re, Mi...)

Here's what I discovered:

1. Choir directors can be really nice, encouraging people (who sometimes devote Wednesdays to the color purple)
   
2. People did not wince from what I envisioned was my harsh, grating tone
   
3. You will be very popular in a choir if you have a good ear
   
4. Singing is a fun, unifying experience that is just plain good for the soul
   

It made me a little mad that I had been cheated out of such a great thing for so long. It made me mad that some people try to make singing something so lofty and inaccessible, try to tell others they can't sing when they clearly can. We're not all going to be on Broadway, but we can carry a tune and we don't sound half bad doing it, thankyouverymuch.

Enter my six years of directing small community choirs. Starting with my dorm and lately including the church choir. It's always been a mix -- some seasoned choir veterans, some people wanting to try for the first time. I've never auditioned anyone. I depend completely upon the goodwill and kindness of my singers to forgive each others' mistakes and help each other to create a beautiful performance.

So I'm really excited that we're coming up on a performance again for Christmas this year. They sound great, but their hearts are even better.