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Rumination:  Can't Sing...Can I?

On a muggy August Monday, I am standing in a room inside Marlborough College with 54 strangers.  Average age:  50+.  Women outnumber the men by two to one, but there are a good number of silver-haired gents, and even a few younger ones.  I am the last to arrive, of course, and thus end up with the only remaining seat – in the front row, middle. 

     Marlborough Summer School’s program is vast and varied, encompassing the arts, crafts, history, literature, computing, and even ‘life skills’. For someone like me who has never been accused of having a good voice, on the rare and usually inebriated occasions when it has made an appearance, singing may seem an odd choice.  But the course outline specifically mentioned beginners, and I reasoned that it is good to leave one’s comfort zone. Occasionally. 

     However, just in case, there is a Plan B:  I will just quit if the sounds coming out of my mouth are as horrific, as utterly tuneless, and as embarrassing as I fear they might be.  I am quite prepared for this eventuality.  I will scuttle back to my comfort zone, and probably never leave it again.

     Paul Cozens, the Musical Director, looks nothing like I expected:  he is much younger and trendier.  He has a very friendly face.  I was expecting someone schoolmasterish, like the music teacher who despaired of my inability to grasp even the simplest tune on the recorder. 

     Paul explains that we have four days to learn the music that we will perform at the end of course concert on Thursday night.  This does not scare me - until I see the fat folder of sheet music (with actual notes) that we are meant to learn.  There are 60 pages of it:  a Rogers and Hammerstein medley, a Stephen Sondheim medley, a Grease medley, and something from Mary Poppins.  It is only the fact of my front-row position which prevents me from making a discreet exit at this point.  Other people are nervous too:  Paul threatens us with choreography for the Grease medley, and I hear a querulous voice behind me say, ‘I hope he doesn’t make us do the hand jive.’

     We women are instructed to assign ourselves either to the altos (lower notes, harder parts) or sopranos (higher notes, easier parts).  Everyone shuffles around but I stay put, as I am already in the soprano section and intend to stay there.  I am no more a soprano than I am a tortoise, but being unable to read music rules out joining the altos, led by Charlotte Sayers, who is lending her powerful voice to the alto section.

     By the coffee break (which includes delicious doughnuts and muffins), we have sung through  the Rogers and Hammerstein medley, which features bits from The Sound of Music, Oklahoma, and Carousel, all arranged in three parts.  Accompanied by Elaine Brown on the piano, we have made a start on our concert program.

     This is turning out to be the most tremendously, surprisingly fun thing that I have done in a long time.  Somehow, from 55 strangers of vastly differing ability, Paul, Charlotte, and Elaine are creating a sound which is not half bad.   Fortified by sugar and caffeine, we attack the second part of the morning, which is more challenging.  Stephen Sondheim wrote some fabulous music, but most of the group have never heard it before.  Even so, and even though the harmonies are more difficult, the sound that we make is …actually very good.    

     And so ends our first session.  It turns out that some members of the group have come from America to take the course, and many others have come long distances in the UK:  a solicitor from the Isle of Wight, a lady vicar from Wales, a grandmother from Cheshire, a teacher from Bristol.  More than half of the members are veterans of previous years.  I am beginning to see why.

     Each day, for the next three days, we learn some new music and go over things that we have learned on previous days.  The pace is intense, everything building towards Thursday night’s concert, and we fall on the doughnuts at coffee time.  Paul has a line in witty banter which keeps the mood upbeat, even on the frequent occasions where we lose the plot completely.  This is, after all, ‘Singing for Pleasure’ not ‘Singing for Perfection’.

     We are still learning new music on Wednesday, and it seems impossible that we will be performing the next night.  We have yet to rehearse in the theatre, but as the week has worn on, we have been bonding ever more as a group.  There is something very pleasurable, almost spiritual, about this.  We sopranos inhale as one in preparation for our first note.  The men applaud us after a particularly pretty rendition of Feed the Birds from Mary Poppins; we whoop and cheer the men’s rousing chorus from ‘There is Nothing like a Dame’ (which turns out to be the high point of the concert).

     On Thursday night, the weather goes biblical: thunderstorms, flooded roads, power failures everywhere.  So we are pleasantly surprised to see the Ellis Theatre nearly full to capacity when we file onto the stage.  Our opening number, Little Shop of Horrors, draws huge applause, Paul making outrageous faces to liven us up.  With each number, we get more confident, and put everything we have into our encore – a raunchy, jazzy version of Broadway Baby. 

     We missed a lot of notes during the half-hour performance.  We messed up some harmonies, flubbed some of the timing.  But that night, for 30 minutes, 55 strangers made a beautiful noise together.

     And we are already looking forward to the Abba medley next year…

Published in the Western Daily Press.

  Vanessa

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