Virtual Choir 3.0 - My Experience

On Classic FM (UK) in late November, I had heard and fallen in love with, a piece by Eric Whitacre called 'This Marriage'. (perfect timing as we were coming up to our 35th Anniversary!)
It's based on a poem by Rumi.

May these vows and this marriage be blessed.
May it be sweet milk,
this marriage, like wine and halvah.
May this marriage offer fruit and shade
like the date palm.

May this marriage be full of laughter,
our every day a day in paradise.
May this marriage be a sign of compassion,
a seal of happiness here and hereafter.

May this marriage have a fair face and a good name,
an omen as welcomes the moon in a clear blue sky.

I am out of words to describe
how spirit mingles in this marriage.

I quickly googled him and found that he was in the process of doing another Virtual Choir (number 3) and stay tuned to the site for more details. Having seen, heard and played the youtube Virtual Choir 2.0 doing his 'Sleep' composition, I was more than intrigued and thought to myself, 'why not'? It was his TED speech that really lit a fire under me to do it: especially when he read out portions of emails that had been sent to him. One in particular stood out: a lady from the far reaches of Alaska got up her courage to send him a video even though her husband said 'go ahead and try, but you don't have the voice for it!"
ooooooooo. (I hope she sent him out to feed the huskies in a blinding snow storm!)

So I thought, if she can do it from the far north, then what is my excuse?
Truth be told, I almost didn't make it.
But the idea of a world wide Virtual Choir coming together to sing this particular piece kept me going.
That and the phrase from Mark Twain who said. 'I do not regret the things I've done, but those I did not do.'
(If I am in the mix: I will be one of the 3746 videos and one of 1075 Altos!)

The following is an email that I sent to the Virtual Choir story file after taking part in the Challenge of Virtual Choir 3's 'Water Night' by Eric Whitacre.

February 2, 2012
Dear Virtual Choir People:
I heard the people singing, I heard the music start,

The Song that they were singing, was ringing in my heart.

No man is an island...No man stands alone..

Water Night has finally moved out of my head, taking it’s ear worm with it and I woke up this morning humming this instead! (an old Girl Guide Campfire song)

January has been a roller coaster for me with That Date circled on every calendar in the house and day planner..yes yes..January 31. Plenty of time.

Ah but first I had to learn my part and this year I set myself up a 60th birthday challenge: not to do the soprano which I had always done, but the ALTO!

O sure.

Thankfully there was SoundCloud which had the alto part, but try as I could, my hearing just could not pick up the timing. It wasn’t until Matthew Curtis did the Choral Tracks for all the parts, that I was finally able to download the Alto part and feel comfortable getting to know it.(bless you Matthew!)

I took that mp3 track with me everywhere including the UV LightBox at the hospital where I go for treatment twice a week, and with a paper bag over my head and earphones, warbled away thinking that no one could hear me over the noise of the fan. (It turned out that my physio Jennifer could and commented that she could hear those ‘airy notes’ coming from the box!) oh.dear.

Then came The Last Two Weeks.

I hit a wall. Big Time.

My husband is a kidney patient and does nightly dialysis with his cycler while he sleeps. Usually this has not been a problem but lately, nightly alarms would go off, sometimes four or five times during the night.

Sleep? What’s that? (and I’m not referring to the music!)

I honestly had given up submitting a video as night-time was the only space I had to do it in and if his alarms went off, would the mic pick it up?

It was also that bottom note at section 47 – I could hit it in practice, but once I started to record, it packed its bags and left me stranded.

January 31- I finally have a quiet night and fingers crossed, I started to record or so I thought.

We all know what happened with Viddler, so we will skip the Server Down and the World Wide Panic that it caused among the VC3’ers.

And so I thought, That Was It, I crumpled up the pages of my music and stuck it in my day planner with a mental note to myself.. ‘well I tried.’ and went to bed.

Next day, out of curousity, I went on to the Water Night site and O GLORY, there was an extension!

I went through six degrees of hell, Should I or Shouldn’t I, til finally I got up the courage to tackle it once more, especially after reading that wonderful note from Rhona-Mae Arca, who said ‘don’t worry about a difficult note, remember someone out there will hit it, just go for it.’

So I did.
I began to sing and began to sail through the first phrase, ok, second, third, everything was going smoothly when dang, my ear piece fell out. To heck with it, I kept on singing, while sticking it back in my ear and finished!

I hit Save and submitted it.
If accepted, it will be in the bottom of the mix, but I can truthfully say YES! I did it!’

Thank You Eric for composing such a moving spirtual piece and Thank You Everyone for all the support during those last few hours and minutes leading up to that Dreaded Deadline!
Blessings