Rescue Me

If ever there were a need to torture a vocalist for any reason – elicit a confession, discover top secret information, whatever – I believe I’ve found the perfect method. It’s called “judging honor choir auditions.” I spent 9 hours (NINE HOURS!!) the other day listening to the same 2 ½ minute stretch of music, over and over and over and over again, with students of various ages attempting to sing along with varying degrees of success. Mostly leaning toward the “un” success. (Which actually is probably a good thing…if they were all good, how would we ever be able to decide who gets in?)

But, OHHHHHH, it was painful. And never ending.

Well, okay, obviously it did finally end, but since we didn’t have a schedule to know WHEN it was going to end, it felt endless at the time.

Besides the obvious pain of having to listen to many, many students who just didn’t seem to know their music, there were an interesting number of students who apparently DID know their music. They knew it so well that they could sing it, note for note, correctly, 2 or 3 beats ahead of the CD accompaniment. That takes talent, people. Unfortunately, there’s no point category for obliviousness, so those lovely singers did not make it in.

Then there was the deeper pain of the poor students who were completely confused by the entrance (they weren’t singing the beginning of the song, which makes it tricky) and who never began singing. Those really hurt my heart. They’re somebody’s student. And someone’s child. And they – many of them – left the audition room in tears. Ouch.

So no matter how numbed I was by listening to the same stretch of song for the umpteen-millionth time, I did everything I could to score fairly throughout the day. Because that child who came in at 6:00 (when I’d thought I was through at 5:15) deserved as much attention as the one who came in at 8:00 that morning when I was still fresh…although a little groggy and downing the coffee.

Oh, but that didn’t mean that I wouldn’t have done just about anything to get out of there at 5:15 (fair game for bribery there…or even confession of things I didn’t do!), nor that I hung around 30 seconds after the last kid was out and the room was put back together.

Makes me hugely appreciative of the fact that I have no particular plans for tomorrow…other than laundry and cleaning…I’m really going to enjoy my free Saturday! Happy weekend!!