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Unexpected Exposure
16 November 2010 12:17 amI have tonight been asked, as an emergency measure, to perform the verses to various music-hall songs this Thursday as a solo while the group that was originally supposed to be singing them joins in on the choruses — on the grounds that none of them know the tunes to the verses properly (or at all), and can't learn them in the time available.
Which is a great compliment, of course, but I don't know the tunes to the verses of half of them myself — it's like national anthems; nobody ever does — and while I've sung most of them from the sheet music at one time or another, doing so unaccompanied and with nothing more than a lyrics sheet to guide me is another matter. Fortunately in my own case I am an extremely quick study, and can probably just about learn them all before Thursday: I had an hour or so's bash at it tonight, but found on subsequent experiment in the bath that I still had distinct lacunæ in most of them.
It does, however, dawn on me that I have never in my entire career sung solo in public: to the piano for my own entertainment in private, yes, innumerable times, and as a chorus performance in concert occasionally. But my one and only experience of playing in public in recent years was that my hands shook so much my vibrato went completely out of control: if I get nerves like that it's going to sabotage my voice completely..!
Which is a great compliment, of course, but I don't know the tunes to the verses of half of them myself — it's like national anthems; nobody ever does — and while I've sung most of them from the sheet music at one time or another, doing so unaccompanied and with nothing more than a lyrics sheet to guide me is another matter. Fortunately in my own case I am an extremely quick study, and can probably just about learn them all before Thursday: I had an hour or so's bash at it tonight, but found on subsequent experiment in the bath that I still had distinct lacunæ in most of them.
It does, however, dawn on me that I have never in my entire career sung solo in public: to the piano for my own entertainment in private, yes, innumerable times, and as a chorus performance in concert occasionally. But my one and only experience of playing in public in recent years was that my hands shook so much my vibrato went completely out of control: if I get nerves like that it's going to sabotage my voice completely..!
