A book came in late last week that dredged up a mortifying memory: Essential Sight-Reading. It’s intended for singers, the choral type. I was a high-school freshman when it happened.
The memory came from soooo many years ago, the chorus at McAuley Regional in Joplin. I cannot deny. I love to sing. Freshman year, I had a pretty good range, what with having a low voice all my life but then still being able to reach the elusive tenor notes.
Ironically, the director situated me right on the line. At one elbow – tenors, the other – bass singers. During Handel’s Messiah it was perfect. I was shifting back and forth singing both parts, depending on which one I liked better. It was a fun class, although I failed to see the purpose of it in regard to high school education.
We traveled to a competition and sang Joshua Fit de’ Battle of Jericho and one of the songs from West Side Story. Then, our director handed us each a sheet of music and wished us good luck. As I recall, she had a bright and shiny choral director look about her.
That was quickly erased.
We were herded into a smaller room and clambered up on the risers. Apparently, we were to sing – as a group – the song on the sheet music we had just been handed. Sight-reading. We had never, ever practiced such a thing. (What exactly is the point of it anyway? Some chorus gets felled by a bus-crash en-route to a performance and an emergency backup troupe is trucked in to “sight-read” it?)
In a very small voice, the director urged us to “Sing out, now…” and to just “follow the notes.” Hey, Mrs. Director! I don’t read music! She tapped her little stick on the podium and set us to it.
The thin smile on her face turned into an expression that might have accompanied the chewing of something that was still squirming. The director was certainly squirming. I knew there was no way I was going to get near a correct note – bass or tenor – so I just moved my lips. Mrs. Director continued to wave the baton, but it was clear her heart wasn’t in it: it was working too hard trying to restore blood to her face, which had gone ashen grey.
She thanked us for trying when we ran out of words to mouth, and was sort of round-shouldered the rest of the afternoon. I don’t think there were too many witnesses to our horrible butchering of some finely-crafted song, but gossip races like wildfire through the choral communities.
I moved away with my family the summer after ninth grade, so I can’t say with certainty, but I suspect the McAuley Regional sight-reading performance is now the stuff of legend, a low-light of the vocal world, a head-shaking, shuddering recollection amongst the musically tutored.
Out of curiosity, I opened up Essential Sight-Reading and looked at a page. The goose-flesh raised and I quickly shut the cover and returned it to the shelf, then broke out into the chorus of Joshua Fit de’ Battle.
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