Sing!

My first WCC concert is tonight. I'm a little bit excited, and just the teensiest bit nervous. That's a good thing though, because it is going to be a fantastic concert.

Since the concert is foremost on my mind today, I thought I'd share how I even got started singing. I, of course, learned my first songs in primary and sang in the primary program. In elementary school (I esp. remember 4th & 5th grades) we put on a concert every year. I have a vhs of my 4th grade Texas themed concert. I can even remember most of the songs we sang.

Music is always a large part of church life, so even if I didn't participate in choir in middle school, I kept on singing. It wasn't until I was about 13 that I realized that the melody to songs was sometimes too high for me to sing right. I remember sitting next to Sabrina during Sacrament meeting and us both deciding it was maybe time to learn how to sing the alto line to the Hymns.

The first Hymn I learned the alto to was "Our Savior's Love." I remember picking it because it has a neat moving alto line. I would sit at the piano and play just the alto line, then I would sing it and play it. I did it over and over. Then I'd play both the soprano and alto lines and try to pick out the alto. Finally, when I thought I really had it down, I'd play the soprano while I sang the alto. Then I branched out to other songs.

After a while I was able to hear just the alto lines from the songs and it was easy to pick them out. Sometimes now its hard for me to sing melody to Hymns, since the alto is second nature. Once in a while I like to challenge myself and learn the tenor. A couple of times on my mission I sang tenor on some pieces for musical numbers. As a teenager I learned a lot about choir singing in church choir. There are some fabulous people in the church.

I was blessed to have a fabulous duet partner in my friend Lisa. We would often sing together in church and in High School, we sang in German Contests together, winning awards. Some of my best memories are of us singing together. Finally, my senior year in HS, I had an open period to take choir, and we sang varsity together. We sang Haydn's Te Deum that year for contest.

Since High School, my only outlet for singing has been church choir. I love church choir. I love the openness of it. Our current choir director in our ward is fantastic and we've sung some amazing pieces. Usually our ward choir breaks for the Summer, since most people are vacationing. When that happened this year, I was sad we weren't going to sing for several months, so I started thinking about joining a community choir.

Joining a community choir was actually an idea I had when we first moved to Madison. The timing was always kind of off, I was having a baby or what not. So this Summer I started looking for choirs. I came across the Wisconsin Chamber Choir one week into their auditions. I email the director on a Thursday or Friday night and got an audition for the next Tuesday. By Wednesday morning I had an email invitation to join the choir.

Did I really have any idea what I was getting myself into when I auditioned? I don't think I do. But I do think that Heavenly Father had a hand in helping my choose this choir. The WCC is doing Haydn's The Creation this year, perfect because I've sung Haydn before. Even better? The WCC often sings in German. Our director studied in Germany for a year an a half. So how awesome is it that the choir I joined sings in the other language I know? Well it sure makes it easier on me. We're singing 3 pieces in German tonight. They are all from Brahms.

I'm thankful for singing. I'm not the best singer by any means, probably because I was self taught. But I do think that anyone can develop any talent they want if they try. It takes time and work, but like any worthy thing, the reward is great. Tonight's concert is going to be great, and I'm looking forward to future concerts.