Alleluia

Every year in the Spring my choir sings a piece by Randall Thompson. Every year I am on the soprano part (his soprano parts don't sit high, they just go high, as in up to at least one high A or A flat that, in my voice, of course, have to be sung pianissimo)and every year it's a battle. This year we are singing his Alleluia. We sang it for the choir director's wedding several years ago. Actually, I find this piece easier than most of the others because the high parts move. Most of his other pieces have a sustained high note that you have to reach from a large jump - something not easy for me to do softly. Rather amazingly, I managed to get through the entire piece several times last Wednesday without choking. I was one of only two sopranos there so it was pretty hairy. I will have to say that most soprano choral parts in that range are much harder to sing than most solos (e.g., the soprano line in the Halleluia Chorus is much harder to sing than "Rejoice Greatly") probably because it's assumed that if it's a piece of choral music not every person has to sing every note. In this Alleluia I certainly don't, although as a matter of pride, I was able to sing all the high As, just not necessarily the phrases before. After doing so well Wednesday, I had quite a scare Friday which I don't even want to mention here for fear it will jinx me. I was very tired, and I also think I had been misusing some new exercises that my teacher had (quite coincidentally) given me at my last lesson. He had me singing "oo" with a little smile instead of puckering my lips. This was helpful in the context of the exercise but I don't think it was helpful when I started singing. I seem to be able to manage best if I put my mouth in an "o" position and make sure I keep my larynx down. The hardest phrase is one toward the beginning that goes up to a high A and the whole thing has to be sung pianissimo. I have decided just to sing "aw" and keep my mouth in that position with my larynx down. There's always a possibility that the choir director will tell me not to sing certain notes/sections because they're too loud, which is fine with me. There's never any point in singing alto in these Randall Thompson pieces (as I sometimes do in Bach) because first of all we have more than enough altos and second, most of the soprano part is in a middle register and requires a lot of breath control, which are two assets of mine. So the point is, as always, that I have to sing my best, mind my ps and qs, and not get panicky, which causes my larynx to rise.