Time to Get Back to Work

Since most groups take summer breaks, early fall can feel like back-to-school time. Come September, many of us are ready to get going, see friends that we haven't seen all summer and start challenging ourselves again. At the same time, it can be hard to amp up the energy and get back into full work mode, especially after having a summer full of free evenings.

Setting a few personal goals can help, even if singing is something you do purely for enjoyment. Goals need to be meaningful only to you. They could include such things as

• Improve sightreading skills. For example, as someone who finds working with numbers a challenge, tricky beats and rhythms give me ongoing opportunities to work on this particular aspect of reading music.
• Learn to enjoy music from unfamiliar genres. During rehearsals for the 2014 Christmas concerts, I was surprised to discover that my two favorite pieces turned out to be what I'd call contemporary, which was a switch for me.
• Make 1-2 new friendships or, if it's a small group, get to know everyone in your section on a neighborly level.
• Try out for small ensemble work if your director or chorus offers this opportunity. For me, one of last year's high points was being able to participate in a smaller group doing Benjamin Britten's Hymn to St. Cecilia. It was like musical boot camp - the hardest project I'd had in years, but very rewarding. 

If you use goals to turn up your level of engagement and enjoyment rather than merely adding another "should" to your to-do list, they'll ease the transition into the busy season.

The Workout

Some people get hits of emotional oxygen by running marathons, dancing all night at a favorite club, hours-long gab-a-thons with friends or bursting into speech in an unfamiliar language at church. I get mine in boot camp rehearsals. 

Nearly everyone I know has a favorite method of achieving a body-mind-spirit high by undertaking an extreme challenge, being "all there" during the work, and relishing the triumph upon overcoming obstacles and meeting goals. For some of us, doing this as part of a team enhances the satisfaction immeasurably. These days my workout consists of rehearsals with an ensemble of about 30 singers from several community choirs working on Benjamin Britten's Hymn to St. Cecilia, possibly the most difficult piece I've ever encountered. 

The Britten piece is part of a season finale joint concert by my own group, Vancouver USA Singers and the Clark College Chorale, and will be sung by a small ensemble consisting of members from both groups. Each ensemble member attends not only his or her group's regular rehearsals, but also that of the other group, plus an intense 3-hour practice every Saturday. It's a big committment. And the Saturday director works us hard. 

However, after each energetic, sweaty Saturday workout, we leave with the satisfaction of having accomplished something major. Every bit of tricky timing, every chromatic run, every tongue-twisting phrase we've mastered brings the same feeling that I remember having after a 3-mile run, when I still ran, only this feels even better because I'm surrounded by a gang of other equally happy people. 

I think we all need an activity where we commit to pushing ourselves to excellence, work harder than we think we can stand, break through barriers and savor our victories with kindred spirits. Such an activity can help us survive rocky times during relationships, toxic jobs, financial difficulties and other less welcome challenges. It's easy to drop out of "extracurriculars" when problems threaten to sweep us overboard. But those times are, in fact, the times when we need most need an energy-infusing workout for mind, body and spirit. 

When the air in your life gets stale or you feel like you can't breathe, you need your source of emotional oxygen more than ever. 

Performers' High

After the small ensemble I'd been part of for 13 years disbanded, the director told me that although she missed our rehearsals - just a bunch of madrigal enthusiasts singing together - and our potlucks, she didn't miss performing. For her, it was a relief to not get into costume and spend the entire month of December plus significant chunks of spring weekends playing to crowds.

Everyone who sings with others has different reasons for doing it, but I have to admit that, unlike my friend, performing is one of my reasons. During the year following our dissolution, before I connected with my current community chorus, something was missing. I sang in church choir but it wasn't the same. Life itself felt a little boring. Does that mean that I don't love music for its own sake?

Some musicians would say yes; any motivation other than pure love of practicing an art sullies the experience.  I disagree. Earning money doing music has never been a goal of mine but I do love applause, especially when it seems sincere. I certainly don't look down on writers who want recognition for their blogs or artists who want to display their work at juried shows, even if they never sell anything. To me it makes perfect sense. We all want to be recognized for something.

If that recognition comes from our day job or career, well and good. If high pay comes with the recognition, great! But for many of us, this doesn't happen. That's why we seek recognition elsewhere. And if the public performances entail wearing a costume, improvising, drawing the audience into the scene or hamming it up, all the better - it lets many of us bring out Selves that are kept in cages on the job, at home or in "serious" settings.

That's why I love performing for the public. And I suspect this is why some of my friends in music, theater and dance, friends who'd be called introverts in workaday life, love performing. Stereotypes are like cages, and introverts are often shunted away into a cage labeled Quiet and Self-Effacing. Family, friends and colleagues, bless their hearts, sometimes work very hard to keep us in those cages ("That's so unlike you!"). Being on stage (or its outdoor casual equivalent) is one way to break free.

So while I respect my musical colleagues who are fine with strumming or humming to themselves at home or among a small group of friends, I'll always keep the stage door open. It lets in fresh air, which makes it easier to breathe no matter what circumstances I find myself in at home or work.

An Unexpected Gift

There's something about joining forces with a bunch of like-minded people in order to carry out a vision. The saying "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts" might sound trite but it's true. Great things can happen (and that includes great shows) when a project get propelled forward by communal energy.

There's another benefit to group endeavors when everyone is intensely focused on collaborating: they can spawn close friendships that wouldn't happen without the work that brings everyone together.  Over the years, I've met most of the people who ended up being close friends through the various activities I've joined. These activities have included book groups, writing circles, ensembles and even, for one year, the college rowing club. Not all of these friendships have survived the conclusion of a project, demise of a group or a cross-country move. But they occurred at the right times, under the right conditions.

Science is discovering that singing together provides numerous health benefits. We've known for a long time that friendships are essential to a happy life. Combine them and the benefits more thanb double.

What Gets You Through?

It's been a 12-hour day already: up at 6 a.m., work, go to class, make a brief landing at home to take care of essential chores, and now...rehearsal. I think to myself I must be crazy. A normal person would collapse in front of the TV with a bag of potato chips and a beer. But here I am, off to a 3-hour marathon of rehearsing Broadway hits or chugging through the labyrinthine runs of a Bach cantata. As I wait in line at the corner convenience store to pay for a Starbuck's Doubleshot, I ask that age-old question, why?

Once I'm at my destination and we're in full swing, however, the question becomes irrelevant. No matter how tired, out of sorts or unfocused I was feeling before setting off, I get a second-wind rush. Sometimes it's watered down, but it always comes. That's when I remember This is why we do it. This moment makes all the aggravation of the preceding 14 hours worth it. Sometimes it's a small lift. Sometimes it's a rocket boost. And every so often, the rush of singing together with a crowd of kindred spirits provides the juice needed to get through an entire week, make a significant breakthrough in some other area of life or drop a reminder that life can be much, much more than the daily grind.

People with a passion engage those passions for a number of reasons Sometimes those reasons aren't immediately apparent to us. It may take hindsight to realize that this is the thing we were born to do, and doing it gives us the juice we need to do the mundane stuff like paying bills. It may be because the activity bestows a crowd of ready-made friends or what is sometimes called a fellowship - a group that provides mutual support that extends beyond the rehearsal, meeting or game. It may be a sense of mastery that we don't get at work.

A passion or avocation in any field may even be just a welcome reprieve from certain tedious roles that many of us feel trapped in at times. For two hours of the week, we're not a cog in the company wheel, the always available (and otherwise invisible) friend / family member / volunteer or the bad-cop parent. We're the entertainer, author, artist, citizen scientist, marathon goddess or what-have-you that we've always secretly dreamed of being. It means that in at least one portion of our lives, someone appreciates our showing up, our hard work and our skill, however modest it may be. During stressful times, this is big. It may be the thing that keeps you from quitting your job, bidding your nearest & dearest goodbye and sailing off to Tahiti.

So we keep on keeping on. Even if tonight doesn't bring any revelations or relief, we know that we'll feel better in the morning, that something good will come of this, that no work that we do for love ( the word amateur means someone who does something for the love of it) is ever wasted.

It's not over till the chorus sings.

Out of the Box

It's easy to build boxes around yourself and your singing: I don't like (genre/composer), I'm not a jazz person, I can only sing well when I'm next to Mary, I don't like being pushed, I don't do chest voice, I have to sing the melody because I can't read music...and on and on.

I'd built a box around my allowable experiences. I liked Classical and Early music, most especially Renaissance. Sure, I could do my part in the chorus's "pops" concerts just fine, but I'd convinced myself that it would always be a second-rate experience.

Then, several years ago, I hit a wall. I loved my group but we'd been doing the same repertoire for more than a decade. Certain pieces felt stale. It was proving hard to convince most members to try a more experimental approach to our arrangements. In order to do something about my frustration, I signed up for voice lessons at the best-known local music store-school, and requested a teacher specializing in jazz - something completely new for me.

Int he end I was surprised at the degree to which jazz & pop techniques helped at singing madrigals. My teacher's emphasis on solo work, including her twice-monthly open mic at a coffee shop, made me a stronger singer and forced me to develop stage presence, something not usually required of choral singers. I learned how to shed the Pretty Voice and put on a more earthy style when the material seemed to call for it. Most of all, it opened my mind up to a whole new range of possibilities. These days I find myself singing along with Ella Fitzgerald and Peggy Lee as well as the Boston Camerata.

My Renaissance group has quasi-disbanded and I've joined a large chorus. Currently we're rehearsing for a Broadway-inspired show. It requires a totally different singing style and lets us ham it up. And it's more fun than I would ever have guessed it would be.

If you're feeling bored during rehearsals or it seems like you've hit a glass ceiling - the director always overlooks you when casting small groups or solos; no one seems to notice your extra efforts; you can't advance from the B choir to the A choir - maybe it's time to ask yourself if you've boxed yourself in. The good news is that if the answer's "Yes," you can get yourself out. Find something completely new to you and dive in.