28 people turned out to sing at the weekly Berkeley singing tonight. In some ways it was a typical Berkeley singing: energetic, loud, relatively fast. Clarissa, one of the out-of-town singers who came to the all-day singing on Saturday, said afterwards that it was a very good singing, and it was.
But, as Marsha noted, David pitched the tunes somewhat lower than usual. David has a very good ear, and listens closely to the class. Maybe he heard what I heard: quite a few tired voices. Towards the end of the two hour singing tonight, I could hear some of voices getting tired, drifting off pitch, not able to keep constant volume. My own voice was tired after three days of singing: the muscles of my throat and mouth couldn’t keep up with the fast tunes, and the muscles of that support breathing were tired enough that I just couldn’t support the highest notes. I was glad that David pitched a little lower than usual.
Thank goodness I don’t have to preach any time soon.
2 replies on “The post-post-singing singing”
Maybe it was that off-pitch male alto …
…or that really tall off-pitch bass (me).
What was really interesting to me was that Marsha’s voice — and she sang all day Saturday, too — showed no signs of fatigue Monday night. Which just goes to show that if you have exceptionally good vocal technique, as does Marsha, it makes a real difference. My resolution before the next all-day singing: I’m going to work on Chapter VI Mechanics of Singing in the Rudiments (pp. 20-21).