...Bring me a Dream...

Funny things, dreams. And I don't mean funny like the preceding post where I talk about having technicolour dreams with force feedback. I mean hopes and dreams, fears and ambitions. I'm really quite the dreamer. I regularly dream when I sleep, and I have a lot of hopes. Many of these come to nothing; the longstanding dream of being able to ask a girl out on a date still escapes me.

One day, a long time ago, it was my foremost hope to move out from house and home and go to university, and get a degree. Now, I'm in the final and most fatal furlong of that journey. One slip now...and I'm done for! Best not slip then, eh? When I was 16, I told myself that I could teach myself to play the Organ. Well, I'm having lessons now on a deeply important and excellent instrument, which truly tests me to the very limits of my admittedly poor technique. A year younger than that, I wanted to play the Upright Bass in my school Swing Band. That came and, because I left school, went, but I still play, and I want to get back to a band. Also, I want to play my Tenor Banjo in a Dixie Band. I'm a rythym section kinda guy. I love it.

But why did I really work up the effort to come to University? It would have been a whole lot easier to have just...not bothered! It's kind of the same thinking behind Lent this year though; I was going to give something up but then I realised I'm not a quitter. ZING.
Unlike what you may think, I didn't come here to get depressed, feel alone or even write a dissertation about Organs, even though I'm doing all of those right now. I came here to sing.

When I was about...I dunno, maybe 9 years old, I decided that I was going to be an Alto. I was a probationer chorister of Derby Cathedral Choir, and I thought that being an Alto was the Bee's knees, not to mention that incredible solo that came around every year, Orlando Gibbons' This is the Record of John. SWEET. I had my heart set on that bad boy. So, when I reach that age in a boy's life (behave, no sniggering at the back) when one's voice changes, I had the summer holiday off and then got straight on to the back row! Pow! Guess what?! BAD IDEA.

I wouldn't say the damage was irrepreble. In fact, nobody has said that. Sometimes it feels that way, but it isn't. I just have a voice which works in a very peculiar way, still quite strong in the upper half of the compass, levelling off the lower it gets and then a huge gear change into chest voice. We have a reputation, my voice and I.
So.

What's the problem? Well, truth be told, I find it hard to find anybody who really wants me to sing around these parts. Harsh. Maybe it's all in my head. Or maybe that's what some people would like me to think!
I was involved in a Madrigal group in my first year. We didn't do terribly much, but we did at least one recital so that was good. Yeah, Madrigals! I wanted to sing early music when I got to University. I was told that Countertenors were wanted and were the in thing and I'd be well in.
When I arrived, I had a head full of idealism and knowledge of Early Music. I can still tune up a Viol Consort almost off the top of my head, and used to be able to rattle composer's names and dates off like a crazy man. Can you see where this is going?
Anyway, Second Year dawns (ugh) and there forms an ensemble, dedicated to Early Music...Invitation Only, bro. You know, like the top of the pops Early Music, the big favourites, including big Tom T's Lamentations. Oh well. Funnily enough, that's not the only ensemble formed with no small interest in Early Music. Once again, Invitation only and once again lost in the post. Funny, I can't really start being an arse about these things because a) It was their choice b) It's been and gone but 3) I'm always going to be annoyed about it. Thankfully I was still in situe in the Chamber Choir, much like I am now, much like first year.

Mistake number one has to be voluntarily choosing to get Spammed. The strange bi-polarity of being invited to have a scholarship and attracting the look of death and several pointed comments every rehearsal about "someone's pushing the balance" meant that quite basically I went home in tears every other week. Ok, that's not nearly descriptive enough. I believed that singing was all I was good at, but thankfully I was still good at it. Turns out I almost got convinced otherwise, and almost gave up entirely. If I can't sing, then what else am I good for? Stage Management? (Too soon?) Things aren't quite as bad this year, as my improved living and study arrangement has allowed me to regain some thickness. And you grumblers over there, if I can't write what I like in my tell-all blog, then where can I write it?

I basically gave up on early music. Seriously. I am reliably and repeatedly informed that we of the old Countertenoring type are too loud, out of tune, unable to blend effectively blah blah blah...The only thing I may be fit for is solo work, a little questionable since I only have ensemble experience these days, no connections and...seriously, how often do you think I get asked to sing solo? (Oh Woe is me? Get real. This is my true perception). That and in all honesty, I don't often listen to early music for the pleasure of doing so. It has to have the driving motor of North German Stylus Phantasticus, or the Organic counterpoint of Weelkes and the avant-garde members of the English Madrigal School, or John Bennett's lusty fugal style...you get the picture. I often find Renaissance polyphony boring, because I'm not involved in it.

So. I didn't bother about early music for a long while, mainly during the summer. I did very little singing, perhaps the rest let my voice relax a little as well. It's certainly much smoother and I have more dynamic control than ever. A freshman, in his infinite idealism, posted on the facebook forum for the new intake this year that he wanted to start a Barbershop Quartet. The rest is history! Or, It'll have to wait til next time.