'Tis the season for Christmas music and concerts and in addition to that.... 'tis the season for carolling gigs!As a child, I often sang in choirs without any monetary benefit, however, things have changed now since I actually get paid to sing sometimes. It's shocking, I know! I used to feel a lot of pressure to perform well, since somebody was actually paying me not to screw up... and in many instances I still feel that pressure... but not with carolling gigs anymore. I am not yet a seasoned carolling veteran, as some of my fellow choristers are, but I'm coming pretty close since I've started to go on automatic singing pilot during my recent carolling gigs. The interesting about gigs is that most times you don't really know what you're signing up for.My first gig of the year was at Rexall Place (which is the large hockey arena in my city). You can probably just imagine the setting... there we were... a strong and mighty group of 6 women tucked away into the corner between a table with silent auction hockey art and a large concrete pillar. Beside us was a young man using his belt-friendly hockey voice to advertise free Oilers blankets if they signed up for a credit card as we sang "Away in a Manger", while in front of us was a huge influx of traffic as we stood in front of the doors from the LRT and busstop. It was a gong-show! Nobody could hear us and I could sense that, as a group, our voices were becoming strained as we attempted to sing over the bustling hockey environment. However, at the same time I couldn't help but smile to myself in regards to how ridiculous our situation was. Out of all the environments where carolling should occur, before a hockey game isn't one of them! People are pre-occupied with buying beer, popcorn, and foamy fingers and aren't really in the mood to hear about how "Mary had a Baby". In addition, I had quite an adventure seeking out the gig entrance since I had to look for the ice-level entry point coming off of the LRT. I had to walk around the arena and go down a sketchy-looking ramp. If it wasn't for all the Mercedes and BMW SUVs parked outside (the car of choice for professional hockey players it seems) I would have thought I was in the wrong spot.However, it was neat to stand next to the ice as we waited for our guide. Beside us where lots of VIP looking people with special passes strung around their necks and multiple media crews with their cameras and anchormen ready for the broadcast. We waited patiently for the girl who would lead us around. She soon emerged and professionally, but unenthusiastically, greeted and informed us that she would be taking care of us that evening. Once we were all together she walked us over to the scoreboard room to store our things. The scoreboard room was a very neat dark room filled with glittering television sets with multiple hockey channel broadcasts from different locations. Also, since I hadn't changed into my uniform beforehand... and it didn't seem like the men in the scoreboard room were leaving anytime soon, I was able to discretely change as a fellow chorister held up her arms with her carolling cape and it was a very nice makeshift dressing room. If there is one thing choir has taught me... it's how to change discretely and efficiently in public. A big part of it is not being self-conscious and to just go for it! The longer you take and the more tentative you look-the more people will pay attention. As well, it's all about changing with layers ex. putting a skirt on before taking off your pants etc. Anyway, we gigged for a good hour and a half where it felt like we were shouting the words of carols into hockey patron faces while our guide tapped away at her iphone to kill time. Once the start of the hockey game was approaching, she told us we could wrap it up and she took us back down to gather our things in the scoreboard room before ushering us to the back doors that opened out again on the sketchy ramp parking lot. We had to exit before the hockey players came out. They had already laid out a rubber walking path for the players and a custodian was mopping the walkway so that the players would have a clean walkway on their way to the rink. I do have to admit, it was interesting to see all the behind-the-scenes activities behind a hockey game!I'm not sure if I would do that gig again... but it definitely was a first and I'm all for experiencing new things :)Until next time, take care and stay warm! (On Sunday, Edmonton was the coldest city in North America!)
On Saturday night I had the pleasure of singing for a Ladies Appreciation Night for Wives and Widows of the Masonic order at the San Remo Restaurant. I signed up for the gig for two reasons:1. I would raise money for my fundraising account
2. I would be fed
You can probably ask any musician this (or any person really) but being paid and fed is the sign of a very good gig. However, I also knew that our gig would be stressful since we would have limited time to run through songs together. There were 6 of us and we were singing songs we usually sing with the whole choir. Some pieces were spread a bit thin with all the split voice parts and sometimes impromptu solos where necessary...but we survived :)
We knew we had to run through pieces before we began to sing so we went to the most private place we could find....the bathroom. When we began to realize that people needed to use the bathroom we moved to the next best space....the handicap cubicle. It comfortably fit 6 people! It was here that we ran through the pieces that worried us the most and we also decided last minute to sing Frobisher Bay. We didn't have music but it was fine since we knew most of the melody and that song is ingrained into my choral being. I know all the words and I can sing any part. That training is from my good ol' Con Fuoco days. It was in the bathroom stall that we gave Erin time to run her "Shall we Gather at the River" solo (which she graciously volunteered to sing last minute) and we cut some instrumental pages out of Tell me Ma and figured out how we were going to split the chords of some songs that needed 9 voices. Soon after, somebody came in to alert us to the fact that dinner was being served so we processed out to our spots at the end of the table where everybody else was sitting.
We began to organize our music and decide our set list as bruschetta, salad and pasta were being passed around to us. Once we were organized and had everything figured out I could tell there was less stress in the air. Dinner was delicious and it was fun to unwind with my fellow choristers. We normally don't get the time to chat to one another even with rehearsal breaks and it's really through doing gigs and touring that we get to bond.
We began singing our first set after the entrees and the audience chuckled when we confessed that we were now going to sing for our supper. We decided to sing two musical sets. We started off with a light madrigal and one thing which is really nice about singing in a small group is how responsive we were to dynamics and musical interpretation. The only song which sounded a bit off to me in the first set was a Finnish song we had called On Suuri Sun Rantas. We decided to all sing unison at the beginning instead of having a solo but then, all of a sudden, I totally forgot that the solo continues and the choir starts humming. I had about a 1/2 second blip in my brain when I heard others switch down to the choir part and realized we didn't designate someone to sing the solo. Anyway, I sang it along with Kirsten and we survived.
The most integral skill in these gigs is winging it. You have to be aware at all times if musical parts are missing and you have to be ready to jump around to different lines to help your fellow choristers out. It requires a lot of brain power but you just have to keep your ears open since we don't want to leave anybody hanging. After this set we were served dessert and got to listen to some Masonic toasts.
Afterwards, we popped outside on the restaurant to run through more songs before our second set. It kind of looked like we were all smokers since we all processed out together and huddled together (it was chilly!) over by the smokers corner...
In our second set, we there was a slight panic moment in "Queen Jane" when the altos each came in on a different note on one line but I wasn't paying enough attention to jump down and help them out. We finished off the piece with some strange chords and a few confused looks from audience members but I think they just thought the weird chords were a part of the piece.
The ending of the second set was nice since it was just two folk songs, Shall We Gather at the River and Tell My Ma, where the melodies were just the same but there were different words. Even though we didn't discuss dynamics beforehand we created our own on-the-spot dynamics to give our song some variety since there were 5+ lines of text. That's another thing you can't do in a choir. In a small group it is much easier to be receptive to those around you so you can hear and sense when there is a consensus to do something different with the text. Tell My Ma was fun as always and it was just nice to get the audience clapping along and end the evening with something catchy and pleasant. We had some standing ovations and it was a lovely gig to sing overall since the atmosphere was warm and intimate and the acoustic actually wasn't that shoddy either.
We ended the gig by talking to our audience members and we all received red roses as we went out the door. An excellent gig overall!
