TCATS #294 - Leaving the 99

I was grateful to be with my choir friends Thursday night for our weekly rehearsal, but I skipped the Music & Spoken Word broadcast today to attend my home ward at 9:00AM. Why, you ask? So that I could enjoy taking the Sacrament with my family and hear my daughter speak. Rebekah just returned from serving a mission to Birmingham, England, and today she was given the opportunity to share her testimony of Jesus Christ and share some experiences she had during the past 18 months. As part of the talk she gave, she included a testimony from "Joe". Joe had a very messed up life before he met my daughter and her companion. He was on drugs, an alcoholic, and ready to give up on life. But as learned about the gospel and how much his Savior loved him, he was able to successfully break free from those destructive habits and today enjoys membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In fact, he's been sober for well over a year now and is truly loving the new life he has. Rebekah mentioned that if her entire 18 months had been spent just to help Joe, it would have been worth it a hundred times over. (See picture above)

Anyway, it was a great meeting and I am grateful for all that she did to help the people of England (and help each of one of her companions) come unto Christ. 

As for the choir, we will all reconvene at the Conference Center in two-days time to do a mini-concert for the individuals who make up the United Nations.  Following the concert, we'll do a little recording (top secret!), and then call it a night--only to reconvene again Thursday for our normal rehearsal and prep for Sunday morning. 

Never a dull moment!

Until next time, God be with you.

Looks like my friend Wes took "my" seat today (middle row, right of center). Grateful for all these guys. While I missed them, I didn't miss having to wear the white coat. (haha)

 

TCATS #293 - One Shy of the Perfect Five

So close!

Every so often the planets align, and we have a Music & the Spoken Word broadcast in which I love ALL FIVE songs we're singing (occasionally we sing six songs, but you get the point). After rehearsal Thursday, a friend asked me to guess which of the five songs was his least favorite. I smiled and responded with my least favorite, hoping they'd match up. And indeed they did! I thought I'd keep the little experiment going, so I asked a couple of my carpool buddies on our walk to the car and they responded the same way. 

Of course, this isn't to say that I Think the World is Glorious doesn't have some good qualities. It certainly does. I mean, who doesn't love birds, bees, and blossoms? Who doesn't love to proclaim "I sing and sing and sing and sing" over and over [and over] again? In all seriousness, some people might absolutely love the song. And I completely respect that. I've learned over and over again that one of the main reasons we sing such a variety of songs is because there's such a variety of people out there to connect with. For me though, the song is just a little too sappy--too sugary...too something. 

That aside, the other four songs we sang today are among my favorites. 

SIMPLE GIFTS: The song mentions that it's a gift to be simple and that true simplicity is gained when we're going through the process of bowing and bending and turning to "come 'round right." To me, this means that as we go through the ups and downs of life, the painful experiences as well as the joyful ones, that we are letting all of these experiences and emotions steer us in the right direction.  I don't think simple necessarily means easy. In fact, living simply can, paradoxically, be hard to do. And sometimes the choices we make don't allow ourselves to "come 'round right"--we don't "turn" to God and follow his commandments. But when we do, we find that the simple life is the best life, all things considered. 

PILGRIM SONG: I hope one day that the basses get to sing the first verse of this song along with the other men in the choir. But whether or not that happens, I absolutely love the melody, harmonies, and beautiful orchestration of this song. It also reminds me of my sister Mary who would often "sing the Christian song" and "contemplate the hour when the messenger [would] say 'Come quit this house of clay, and with bright angels tower.'" Love you Mary.


HIS VOICE AS THE SOUND: A beautiful, somewhat haunting folk-song about the Lord's voice being the sound we should hear--the sound we should follow. It's the sound that should resonate within our heart and within our soul. For me, too, the song seems to connect the Christ of long ago, with the Christ of today--and why it is that we should worship Him and strive to be like Him. One person who heard it during the last General Conference commented "Sublime, unexpected, for a moment I went to heaven...".

WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD: This new arrangement by Mack Wilberg had us all thinking about the iconic Louis Armstrong singing this song. I don't know...it's just a great, simple, innocent, happy song! My favorite lyric? "I see friends shaking hands saying how do you do. They're really saying "I love you." Wouldn't the world be a better place--a more wonderful place--if we could all just respect and love one another as Christ would have us do?

It may not have been the perfect five for me, but it was the perfect four. And I'll take that any day!

Until next time, God be with you.

PS: Our new organist, Joseph Peeples, had his debut performance today! Well done Joseph, and thanks for sharing your talents with the world. 

Singing Pilgrim Song today

TCATS #292 - Ordinary? Extraordinary.

Well, every so often, I don't have a lot to say about my Tabernacle Choir journey. And this week is one of those weeks. It's weird when this happens! It's not that my love of singing in the choir and all of the experiences that go with it has diminished. In fact, it's during these "very normal" weeks that I'm almost more grateful for it all because I can simply focus on being in the moment and enjoying the process. I also have to remind myself that just because my experience is normal doesn't mean everyone else's is. To that point, I talked to one friend today who had a very amazing and personal spiritual experience while singing our last number on the broadcast--Guide Us O Thou Great Jehovah. And I can only imagine that other special experiences were happening all around me and to those listening around the world, too. My take home message this week, then, is that it's never just about me (or you) or what's going on in my head or heart (or yours). It's about being the kind of singer (or the kind of person in general) who can actively contribute to, and enhance, all of those special experiences that are occurring. 

Now then...since I don't have much more to say this week, I thought it would be fun to see what others had to say about today's broadcast of Music & the Spoken Word: 

Until next time, God be with you.

TCATS #291 - Library Duty!

There's a well-known saying that goes "You don't know what you've got 'till it's gone." I'd like to modify that slightly: "You don't know about a task until you have to do it yourself."

So my choir friend Willy was talking about his upcoming trip to Alaska several weeks ago, and knowing he had recently been called to serve in the Choir Library, I asked if he needed someone to fill in for him while he was away. He happily accepted my offer. So for the past two weeks I've been learning all about the role of a choir librarian. Before I get too far into sharing my experience though, I should probably clarify. This calling that some choir members receive to serve in the library would more accurately be described as a Choir Librarian helper, since there are several individuals who actually work in the library full-time.

Full-time, you ask? Really?
Yes, really. 

I don't know how many pieces of music the library has. But each piece we have has a number on it. And if I recall correctly, we have one piece that is #2005 (highest I can remember). So, if we assume there are over 2000 pieces of music and we times that by close to 400 choir members (not to mention the orchestra members have their pieces of music), you'll get an idea of how many pieces of music the librarians have to catalogue, store, distribute, collect, etc. 

At any rate, the helpers, as I've decided to call them (two per part), go into the library after the broadcast is over each Sunday, and collect all of the music from the boxes (each choir member has a box, or music "locker"). They then stack each of them in piles sequentially. Each piece has a number, as I described earlier. But in addition to the piece number, the music also has the choir member number (for example, I'm "B-108"). So they stack them starting with B-01, T-01, S-01, and A-01 all the way up to the end of the part numbers. Since I was helping with the Baritones, Steve and I (Steve being the other helper for the Baritones) would gather B-01 thru B-55 I think it was, and put them in piles sequentially, and make note of any choir member that didn't turn in a certain piece of music. When we encounter that scenario, it significantly slows things down because we have to check their folder to make sure it wasn't just misfiled. If it's there, we put it in our pile and resume. 

There are various ways to accomplish the main objective, but in the end, we have large piles of each piece. We then we put them in the main library shelves for the actual librarians to scan in and after being scanned, they place them back on the shelves where they are finally stored until next time we sing them.  

When it was all said and done, I had gained a new appreciation for both the full-time librarians, and the library helpers who certainly contribute significantly to the effort. And, I'd have to say, it was actually kind of fun--in a way. I like tasks where I can visibly see the results of my efforts and this is certainly one of those types of tasks.

Now would I think it was fun after three, four, six months doing it each week? Hmmm. That is a very good question.

Until next time, God be with you.

Part of the library. You can see the many boxes where choir members store their music.

 

Sorting the pieces of music into piles, sequentially.

Full-time librarians scanning in music

Moveable/slideable music lockers where music is stored when not in use