More of the same Jibba Jabba
I have been really lazy here. You probably think I'm busy, right? Oh, she has a kid and a job and a house that needs work and all kinds of fascinating extracurricular activities, so she must be busy. Nah. If I spent the time making up nice blog stories that I do playing stupid Scrabulous on Facebook, then I would still have a few readers out there.
So I just came back from rehearsal for Carmina Burana, which I'm singing with a group at out neighborhood Universitas. It's a weirdly mixed group - plenty of undergrads, but a lot of older people as well that must be faculty, staff, and local alumni. I sat down on the first day next to a girl who cheerfully asked me what year I was. I said, "I'm an alumna..." and she said, "Oh. I'm a freshman." Then she proceeded to tell me how she was freaking out because her friend just got "promised" to a guy, and they had only been going out for five months. I was like, "What's promised? Is that a religious thing?" and she said, "No, like, promised to be engaged later. This is terrible! She's only a freshman! Pardon me while I freak out, I mean, this is big..." Then she went back to texting madly on her phone.
It's a little tricky to describe the average choral singer. There are about 40-50% normal-looking people. The rest fit into various other categories.
1. math grad student, probably goes to Renn Faire a lot
2. classic band geek girl or girl who did a lot of musical theater in high school; laughs a lot and makes gestures
3. some geeky combination of both of the above, except, strangely, a student of the humanities; can be overheard talking about "Model Congress"
4. frizzy-haired middle-aged ladies who would probably wear a boxy blazer with a cat brooch on it, or perhaps a sweatshirt that says, "Too Many Books, Too Little Time!"
5. that one person with the facial piercing
6. serious musicians who coincidently happen to be really attractive - these are the minority
I have also noticed that more sopranos than altos are blond. Also, more are tall. If I seem to be leaving out stereotyping the men, it's because they sit behind me so I don't get to give them the once-over as much.
While I'm reducing everyone to categories as usual, I'll add some more categories based on actual singing:
a. awesome singer, nothing wrong with them
b. nice voice, but sings way too loud and doesn't even seem to notice it
c. person who is sitting right next to you and you can't even tell she's singing - this is either because she sings really softly, she blends beautifully, or because she's surreptitiously studying some psychology textbook under her score and not singing at all
d. nice voice, but is pronouncing all the Latin, Italian, German or French wrong... this is the WORST kind, because the director usually reviews all the pronunciation so there's no excuse other than having NO EAR for language, which is weird, right, because you have an ear for music...
Today this girl was sitting next to me and I was staring at her toes the whole time because she was wearing flipflops and it's still like 45 degrees outside at night. She has bright fuchsia toenail polish and an unfortunate Disney sweatshirt on. She's not rolling any of the 'r's and keeps pronouncing all the 'o's and 'u's with a Philly (or Valley?) accent, making all the pure vowels sound like diphthongs. This is a disaster, but what can I do? Club her?
Now's the point where you tell me to relax and that I am an overly-critical crazyperson who would enjoy life more if I wasn't so intolerant. Well, you'd be right but it's my dag blog.
I'm going to bed now. Night night!
So I just came back from rehearsal for Carmina Burana, which I'm singing with a group at out neighborhood Universitas. It's a weirdly mixed group - plenty of undergrads, but a lot of older people as well that must be faculty, staff, and local alumni. I sat down on the first day next to a girl who cheerfully asked me what year I was. I said, "I'm an alumna..." and she said, "Oh. I'm a freshman." Then she proceeded to tell me how she was freaking out because her friend just got "promised" to a guy, and they had only been going out for five months. I was like, "What's promised? Is that a religious thing?" and she said, "No, like, promised to be engaged later. This is terrible! She's only a freshman! Pardon me while I freak out, I mean, this is big..." Then she went back to texting madly on her phone.
It's a little tricky to describe the average choral singer. There are about 40-50% normal-looking people. The rest fit into various other categories.
1. math grad student, probably goes to Renn Faire a lot
2. classic band geek girl or girl who did a lot of musical theater in high school; laughs a lot and makes gestures
3. some geeky combination of both of the above, except, strangely, a student of the humanities; can be overheard talking about "Model Congress"
4. frizzy-haired middle-aged ladies who would probably wear a boxy blazer with a cat brooch on it, or perhaps a sweatshirt that says, "Too Many Books, Too Little Time!"
5. that one person with the facial piercing
6. serious musicians who coincidently happen to be really attractive - these are the minority
I have also noticed that more sopranos than altos are blond. Also, more are tall. If I seem to be leaving out stereotyping the men, it's because they sit behind me so I don't get to give them the once-over as much.
While I'm reducing everyone to categories as usual, I'll add some more categories based on actual singing:
a. awesome singer, nothing wrong with them
b. nice voice, but sings way too loud and doesn't even seem to notice it
c. person who is sitting right next to you and you can't even tell she's singing - this is either because she sings really softly, she blends beautifully, or because she's surreptitiously studying some psychology textbook under her score and not singing at all
d. nice voice, but is pronouncing all the Latin, Italian, German or French wrong... this is the WORST kind, because the director usually reviews all the pronunciation so there's no excuse other than having NO EAR for language, which is weird, right, because you have an ear for music...
Today this girl was sitting next to me and I was staring at her toes the whole time because she was wearing flipflops and it's still like 45 degrees outside at night. She has bright fuchsia toenail polish and an unfortunate Disney sweatshirt on. She's not rolling any of the 'r's and keeps pronouncing all the 'o's and 'u's with a Philly (or Valley?) accent, making all the pure vowels sound like diphthongs. This is a disaster, but what can I do? Club her?
Now's the point where you tell me to relax and that I am an overly-critical crazyperson who would enjoy life more if I wasn't so intolerant. Well, you'd be right but it's my dag blog.
I'm going to bed now. Night night!
posted by Dubin at 9:15 PM
11 comments
