MTC Week #13 - Preparation

March 30, 2014 - The amazing choir school journey is nearing completion and at the end of the experience lies a final exam. I'm thoroughly [NOT] excited about that, but it is what it is. Given this fun little experience is right around the corner, our instructors spent time both on Tuesday and Thursday to give us a review of our past twelve weeks. From triads, to intervals, to major and minor scales, to articulation, to resonance, to the vocal tract (and many more review items), we worked to remember and prepare. I mentioned to Ben and Andrew and a few others that singing the full MESSIAH should be our final exam. But somehow I don't think that will fly. 

Amidst that review, we had a couple of interesting experiences. First was a visit by the two individuals who oversee the social media needs of the Choir: Eric Malizia and Drew Conrad (they looked quite young, but having a pair of young guys leading the social media dept for the choir is probably the best fit

Eric Malizia

you could have). Eric led out in giving us a presentation which covered Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Blogs, Instagram, and Pintrest and explained both how the Choir uses those tools and how WE can use those tools to help spread the Choir's message throughout the world. He also gave us a look at the Mormon Tabernacle Choir's website--highlighting its content/resources and how easy it is to share those things using the social media tools. For all of you fans of the choir (or even if you're only slightly interested), the website has a lot of cool stuff: past episodes of Music & the Spoken Word (MSW), individual songs

Drew Conrad

from MSW (just in case you don't have a lot of time to watch a full 30 min broadcast), concerts featuring special guests, interviews, upcoming schedules, ticket info, and more. I encourage you to take a look, bookmark it, and if you're ever in the need of a little uplift or break from a stressful day, listen to one of the songs (try this gem) and I'm sure you'll feel refreshed and inspired.

The other experience of note was when Ryan Murphy just took a few minutes to talk more about the concert we had last week. He mentioned comments he had received and how well we did, and was just very happy with the whole experience. He said something I'd like to quote here about what the concert did to people and what music can do in general. He said "music can sink down into the fiber of who we are and forever change us." I fully believe that. I can think of many experiences where that has happened to me. And those changes resulted in either increasing my testimony of Christ or helping me gain new perspectives on life and what's truly important.  

After his words, he opened it up to the choir members to share anything they wanted to share. At first there were only a couple of hands, but then more and more hands went up and I think we spent the next 20 minutes listening to those who wanted to share feedback. Most of that feedback was about people who had attended at the invitation of choir members, and what those people had said about it. It was actually quite humbling to listen of person after person who had come away from the concert feeling uplifted and strengthened, and more appreciative of life's blessings. Indeed, Christ has blessed each of us tremendously. 

To end, a few of you have asked if I'm singing for Conference this coming weekend. They invited members of the Choir School to sing for one of the sessions (and be on stand-by for the others). I was assigned to sing during the Sunday PM session.

Until next time...God be with you.