After an hour of the singing school, we segued into the regular bimonthly Palo Alto singing. The tempo of the songs picked up, and at times some of the new singers got a little lost, but from where I sat in the back of the bass section, everyone I could see was enjoying themselves, and enjoying the music.
It was a very good singing. Even though the newer singers may have felt a little unsure, they sounded good — we all sounded good. I was sitting between two new basses, and it was clear they thought they weren’t singing very well — but they were actually singing quite well. They were listening to me and the other experienced basses, and getting most of the notes right from the start; by the time a third or fourth verse came around, they were both singing well indeed. They both had good strong bass voices, it’s always a pleasure to sing with people who know how to listen and respond to the singers around them, and I really enjoyed singing with both of them.
We took a break after an hour of the regular singing — and after an hour of singing school for most of us as well, which meant a total of two hours of singing. People were very social and very chatty during break; you could feel the good energy in the group. People were also pretty hungry, and lots of sandwiches and watermelon was eaten. A number of the new singers, but I counted 29 singers who reassembled after the break, which is still a good number of singers for a local singing. In fact, it sounded better after the break. The room we were in was a little small for 54 singers, and 29 singers filled the space with sound quite nicely.
All in all, one of the nicer local singings I have attended — and I am very grateful to the regular singers of the Palo Alto local singing who allowed us to piggyback the singing school onto their regular singing.