The Berkeley singing has had some problems with intonation and tempo for the past few months. But tonight we were back on track. Even though some of our regulars still aren’t back from their holiday travels, we sang well tonight.
So what changed over last week? I don’t think it was any one thing. It helped to have both a strong male and female singer on the tenor front bench. But the treble bench sounded great with only women.
I have to ascribe a good bit of the sound of a given singing to the nebulous notion of “chemistry” — the interaction of musico-human personalities. I know I sing better when I sit next to certain people, and those certain people include both those who are really good singers, and those who are not so good.
Once I sang extremely well sitting next to someone who had never sung before; he was easygoing, our voices sounded good together, so I guess we could just concentrate on the music. Another time, at a big convention, I sat next to someone who was supposed to be a topnotch singer, but I found sitting next to him felt like uphill work, so I soon moved away.
John Lennon and Paul McCartney were never as good separately as they were together. There’s always a good deal of chemistry in making music.