This morning I turned a page in the story of my life.
After years of directing the Seymour United Methodist chancel choir, I am done. We ended as we have gone on, disorganized, confused, and actually pretty good.
For years, I've told the pastors not to write down the name of the anthem we practiced in the church bulletin. That's because about fifty per cent of the time we didn't sing it. Key singers didn't show up on Sunday, we had to fit into a change of theme, laryngitis....anything can come up.
This morning, for confirmation Sunday, we had been practicing three anthems. Our introit would be the Mormon hymn, "All is Well". Our anthem, "Walk Worthy," which speaks directly to what the confirmants should be in their church life, and our benediction, "Go Now In Peace."
The first problem was playing "Walk Worthy". It's a difficult piano accompaniment. I intended to be home by Thursday for three good days of practice on the piano. The car broke down on Thursday and I wasn't home until late until Friday. I worked at it on Saturday and figured out it would still be fine if I adapted the piano part a bit, avoiding the runs and replacing them with chords.
Then on Sunday morning, I found I would have no tenor section, they were off at a family gathering. I found two more tenors in the congregation.
I looked at the music and realized "All is Well" would require those voices. I rounded up two more tenors, Diane from the Cicero church who can sing tenor, and Stan, who is legally blind and therefore could not read the music. I threw out "All is Well", which they didn't know. We switched "Walk Worthy" to the introit and used only the first two pages, which was mostly unison. The piano part for those two pages was easy, too.
I pulled "Shepherd of Love" from the files, an anthem we know well, and which is mostly in SAB (soprano, alto, bass). I told Stan an Diane to harmonize the tenor part any old way they wanted. No one in the congregation knows the difference as long as it sounds good.
"Go Now in Peace" is in three parts, too, which is good, because our bass, John had to leave after the anthem.
So I ended my career as a choir director in the way it had always gone, disorganized, confused and chaotic.
We put it all together in fifteen minutes and it worked.
After years of directing the Seymour United Methodist chancel choir, I am done. We ended as we have gone on, disorganized, confused, and actually pretty good.
For years, I've told the pastors not to write down the name of the anthem we practiced in the church bulletin. That's because about fifty per cent of the time we didn't sing it. Key singers didn't show up on Sunday, we had to fit into a change of theme, laryngitis....anything can come up.
This morning, for confirmation Sunday, we had been practicing three anthems. Our introit would be the Mormon hymn, "All is Well". Our anthem, "Walk Worthy," which speaks directly to what the confirmants should be in their church life, and our benediction, "Go Now In Peace."
The first problem was playing "Walk Worthy". It's a difficult piano accompaniment. I intended to be home by Thursday for three good days of practice on the piano. The car broke down on Thursday and I wasn't home until late until Friday. I worked at it on Saturday and figured out it would still be fine if I adapted the piano part a bit, avoiding the runs and replacing them with chords.
Then on Sunday morning, I found I would have no tenor section, they were off at a family gathering. I found two more tenors in the congregation.
I looked at the music and realized "All is Well" would require those voices. I rounded up two more tenors, Diane from the Cicero church who can sing tenor, and Stan, who is legally blind and therefore could not read the music. I threw out "All is Well", which they didn't know. We switched "Walk Worthy" to the introit and used only the first two pages, which was mostly unison. The piano part for those two pages was easy, too.
I pulled "Shepherd of Love" from the files, an anthem we know well, and which is mostly in SAB (soprano, alto, bass). I told Stan an Diane to harmonize the tenor part any old way they wanted. No one in the congregation knows the difference as long as it sounds good.
"Go Now in Peace" is in three parts, too, which is good, because our bass, John had to leave after the anthem.
So I ended my career as a choir director in the way it had always gone, disorganized, confused and chaotic.
We put it all together in fifteen minutes and it worked.
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