![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
With Darkover looming on the horizon, it's time to admit something I've been trying to deny to myself for years.
Hi, my name is Patty and I'm an alto.
I sorted myself into the soprano column back in seventh grade when I joined the junior high school chorus. Likewise, when I was in high school I sat with the sopranos, but when the sopranos split up into high and low, I would choose "soprano 2" because I couldn't hit the highest notes.
I guess my reasoning was that if my speaking voice is high and squeaky, I must be a soprano. Right?
Well, over the years, I have done less singing, save for congregational hymns and campfire songs that really don't challenge anybody's vocal range. So my ability to hit the high notes of the soprano parts has diminished. After all, one's vocal cords are muscles, and if you don't exercise your muscles, they become flabby.
For the last couple of Darkovers, I've been mouthing quite a bit of the soprano part of the Hallelujah Chorus. I always sang the soprano line in high school, except for the one high A. And, granted, Handel used the human voice as if it were a mechanical instrument (to paraphrase something the high school music teacher once said). But it seems silly to mouth more and more of the high notes as the years go by.
So I have printed out the score and am going to practice it with my keyboard. Maybe I'll make an MP3 recording of the alto line on my keyboard and play it back to myself while I'm driving to and from the con. Maybe by Saturday night I'll have started to learn the alto part. It will be hard to keep from switching to soprano, of course, since I have the soprano part stored in long-term memory. But my vocal cords will thank me for attempting to be the alto that I really am.
Hi, my name is Patty and I'm an alto.
I sorted myself into the soprano column back in seventh grade when I joined the junior high school chorus. Likewise, when I was in high school I sat with the sopranos, but when the sopranos split up into high and low, I would choose "soprano 2" because I couldn't hit the highest notes.
I guess my reasoning was that if my speaking voice is high and squeaky, I must be a soprano. Right?
Well, over the years, I have done less singing, save for congregational hymns and campfire songs that really don't challenge anybody's vocal range. So my ability to hit the high notes of the soprano parts has diminished. After all, one's vocal cords are muscles, and if you don't exercise your muscles, they become flabby.
For the last couple of Darkovers, I've been mouthing quite a bit of the soprano part of the Hallelujah Chorus. I always sang the soprano line in high school, except for the one high A. And, granted, Handel used the human voice as if it were a mechanical instrument (to paraphrase something the high school music teacher once said). But it seems silly to mouth more and more of the high notes as the years go by.
So I have printed out the score and am going to practice it with my keyboard. Maybe I'll make an MP3 recording of the alto line on my keyboard and play it back to myself while I'm driving to and from the con. Maybe by Saturday night I'll have started to learn the alto part. It will be hard to keep from switching to soprano, of course, since I have the soprano part stored in long-term memory. But my vocal cords will thank me for attempting to be the alto that I really am.
