Data Bites

I haven't written anything for a while, mostly because nothing all that interesting is happening.

On the church front, I will be singing "Buss und Reu" from the St. Matthew Passion Sunday at 9 am. I learned it quickly - there is just one spot where I have trouble finding my note, so I need to drill it with the recording today, tomorrow, and maybe even Saturday night.

Later that morning we are singing something in a very high range - "E'en so, Lord Jesus" by Paul Manz. The sopranos have two phrases that begin on a high B flat!! Well, this notasoprano is passing on that note and beginning the phrases on an A flat. It's the kind of note where I can just drop my larynx and let it rip, so no problem there.

On Good Friday, I am in the soprano section for the Inroit to the St. Matthew Passion. As the conservatory-trained coloratura has moved on to more prestigious pastures, I guess they need me up there. There is nothing beyond me, really. There is one phrase with a high A, but on those measures he has me (and one of the other second sopranos) singing a "response" word on another staff. The part I have to sing has some nice ascending phrases going up to sustained Gs and Fs, which I can certainly handle. The choir director complimented me on how much better I am able to "control" my voice up there. Well, yes, I have been working my tail off!! I said I use a supported pianissimo, not falsetto. When I tried to sing falsetto up there it choked off my highest notes and some days I couldn't even make it to a B flat. Now that I sing with my larynx down all the time I am going up to high C in exercises every day.

I feel a bit guilty reading about what some of the parishioners are doing during Lent, most notably trying to live on either a bag of groceries from the church's food pantry or the cost of one serving at the community lunch. They are not doing this for all of Lent - just one week each. And they mostly seem to be young. I have been there done that. When I was in my 20s and early 30s often that was all I had for food. I earned almost nothing in a clerical job (this is when I was singing the first time) and in my self-image as an amazon dyke warrior (albeit of the "femme" variety) I wouldn't have been caught dead taking money from my mother. I mean she had very little herself, and certainly couldn't have afforded to pay my rent, for example, but she could have bought me a few groceries.

It's funny. I have never aspired to virtue. Maybe that is because I am not Christian? As I have said, I am a "little bit Christian (the art, music, and Brit Lit lover in me), a little bit Jewish (the New York intellectual in me), and a little bit pagan (the bisexual believer in polyamory in me)." I suppose that translates just fine into Unitarian Universalist. I do try to be fair and just and compassionate, but I feel that my life has put me in a position of being too self-sacrificing (maybe that's uncharitable?) so I am looking to put more, not less, hedonism in it.

On another subject, I put a huge note on my calendar on July 1 to start working on the Verdi Requiem again for two hours a day. In the summer there are no choir rehearsals - just a few ad hoc appearances at Sunday services and the soloists get to have some choice 11:00 anthem spots where we can sing something "upbeat".