What Choir has Taught Me

So for the last year and a half every Thursday night you can find me at choir practice. Being a member of the church choir is just the right amount of being involved and being an invisible face in the crowd to attract me. There’s a part of me that only feels alive when I’m singing. Plus, it’s a few hours of the week where I don’t have to worry about the details of my household, the status of laundry, where my children last placed there beloved whatchamacallit and instead to just loose myself in something that works my body and brain enough for me to stop thinking for a while (that’s a rare thing!)

Recently, I was thinking (while not at choir) about how choir has changed the way I think in several important areas of my life, and whether you can relate to this experience or not I’d like to share with you some of what I’m learning.

1. People are allowed to be wrong.

Our choir director has a happy habit of saying “Always trust your conductor and never trust your conductor”. I guess you’d have to know him to hear how this comes out – two true statements expressed with equal certainty. But it is true. For months our conductor forgot to bring in the choir on a set of ‘oooooos’ behind the soloist. If we relied on him, we would never have come in. Once he brought us in when according to our score, we had a few bars to go– and it was good that we didn’t follow him – but for the most party the conductor is very trustworthy.

I’m a big fan of authority. Really, really am. I would make a first-rate golden retriever. When someone ‘in charge’ gives me a job to do, my husband says he can see my invisible tail wag in happiness. So I love having someone tell me what to sing and how to sing it. The flip side of this of course is that I have great difficulty accepting that people – especially people I admire in any way- make mistakes. But somehow choir is beginning to teach me to balance the ‘always trust’ with a little ‘never trust’ and realize that only my God is infallible and people are allowed to make mistakes (even me).

2. Half- Voices from the choir don’t make the soloist sound better.

A new friend and I were talking last night about what we really hate about women sometimes. Mostly the fact that we always feel like we have to make ourselves less, hide who we really are so as not to make others feel badly about themselves. We both feel easier around men because we don’t have to constantly put ourselves down to maintain conversation. (If this is not your experience, consider yourself blessed to have a group of friends who lets you be who you are!) In choir, I am always fighting myself not to have a timid voice. I can sing with a very full voice when I want to, but I am often afraid to be heard over others in my section or that I might sing a wrong note. Our choir director has been urging us lately to sing with full voices, to be unafraid, and make mistakes loudly. This goes against everything I’ve always been – but I’ve just realized that a whole lot of dim half-voices from the choir doesn’t make the soloist sound any better. It’s all of us singing with all we are that makes the best sound. I saw a quote somewhere to this effect once – the woods would be silent if only but the best bird sang. Something like that. I’m sure it’s on a mug or a cross stitched wall hanging somewhere. Anyway, I know that when the rest of my section is belting it, I feel free to do the same. Being strong in who I am can have the effect of helping others to shine brightly too, and doesn’t diminish them. I’m trying not to be afraid of being a leader, being smart, feeling pretty, being good at stuff. That’s singing my part well, with all I am and all God made me.

3. I am not alone.

I like people. They also make me want to hide under my bed make me nervous. I would usually prefer to go for days without talking to anyone outside my immediate family. But a choir’s sound (and I love the sound of a choir as much as I do the sounds that leave my friends around a campfire) is reliant on not just a lot of voices, but a lot of voices that are very very different listening to one another. (If this isn’t the best training for being a good church member or member of any community really, I don’t know what is!). I think about the neighbours I live around – and realize it’s the neighbours that have asked me for help (walking their dog when they are out of town, building a patio, watching their children) who I am closest with. They weren’t afraid to show me they had a weakness and ask for help, and I respond – and I feel free to ask things of them. It is good to remember we all need to help each other – as much as I need the alto section to know when my little second soprano part comes in. Being in a choir reminds me that all day, every day of my life I am surrounded by people. I need those people to accomplish anything, and they need me. If I am feeling alone – it’s as simple as acknowledging that I need them and they need me and opening my front door to find someone I can help.

So that’s it. I’m looking forward to a new short post-Easter choir season beginning shortly, and I’m anxiously waiting to see what God has for me in it. And this is what I’ve been learning so far. What has God been teaching you lately?