Higher, too

By Mir
November 7, 2004

It’s started already. People are falling under the spell of the new me with my fabulous new glasses. Fame and fortune are within my grasp; as is utter humiliation. To wit:

The scene is the church kitchen. Choir rehearsal has finished, and I am hiding in the kitchen sucking down a cup of coffee before it’s time to go upstairs for the service. I’m chatting with a fellow choir member. We are having a deeply spiritual conversation about the relative merits of various coffee makers.

Him: So yeah, it works pretty well, but it has one of those permanent filters, and so the coffee always tastes a little plasticy.
Me: Mmmm, plastic coffee!
Him: But you can use a regular paper filter, I guess. That would probably fix that problem.
Me: Uh huh. And how long have you been enjoying your plastic-flavored coffee?

The door swings open and the choir director sticks her head in. She looks around until she sees me, then points at me.

Her: Can you do an F?
Me: *blank stare*
Her: A high F. Can you hit a high F?
Me: Oh. Yeah, sure.
Her: Great! *she turns to leave*
Me: WAIT. Why?
Her: Will you be at rehearsal on Thursday?
Me: Yes…?
Her: Great! *she turns to leave*
Me: WHY??
Her: Yoooouuuu’ll see!
*The choir director leaves and I swear we can hear her cackling all the way up the stairs.*
Me: Ack…?
Him: I think you’ve just been the victim of a hit-n-run solo.
Me: Goody.

You see, I do not mind singing solos. Truth be known, I’m a bit of an attention monger (shocking, I know). We’ve started rehearsals for our Christmas concert and I usually get assigned something extra and so yes, fine, a solo, excellent. But there’s a big difference between “Can you hit a high F for maybe an eighth note duration amongst the entire choir of voices” and “Can you hit a high F for perhaps a very long time when yours is the only voice singing.”

Because, friends, I am an alto. Okay, fine. On the off chance that my voice teacher from high school is reading this: I’m technically a mezzo, which means my range falls inbetween an alto and a soprano. But in most standard choral arrangements, one is either an alto or a soprano.

For those of you who don’t sing, that means that I sing low. It means that while the chirpy ladies in the front row are singing melody just as perky as can be, I am in the second row singing some sort of low funky harmony filled with lots of sharps and flats and other weirdness, but no high Fs. I like it that way.

I’m ready to work up a new ad campaign for the makers of my frames. “Look smart, sexy, hip… and more like a soprano. Just see if you don’t.” I mean, it’s possible the choir director was just smoking crack or something, but I tend to think it was the glasses.

Please check back next Thursday for a full-fledged panic attack, depending on what I find out. Also, if you’d like to come to our Christmas concert this year? It’s on Sunday the eleventeenth of Pretendember. I hope you can all make it.

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