Basso profundo

I was nervous. 

A Miss Rep choir ... the '50s, I think.

When one hasn’t sung publicly in years, you worry about things.  Will my pitch be as slippery as a slide whistle’s?  Will my pre-teen voice come squeaking back? Will the high notes be divine harmony or a devil’s honk?

But there I was on the stage of my high school’s auditorium like it was 1973, the stage lights blinding me, sweat trickling, my mouth full of cotton.

Oh, I wasn’t alone.  I had a good, solid bass section around me, plus altos in front, and sopranos and tenors to my left.  Below us sat the audience, though the lights mercifully made them hard to see.

Beloved Miss Rep.

It was the first-ever Webster Groves Acapella Choir Reunion.  Past choir members from as far back as the ‘40s were there, providing a concert with other choirs and the band to raise funds for a new piano.  A piano first used by beloved choir director “Miss Rep” during her 40-year reign had at last reached its end.

If someone tells you there’s no point re-living the past, tell ‘em they’re full of beans.  Especially when what you re-live did so much to mold your good side … spawned that angel on your right shoulder.

A-Choir was that turning point for me, when I went from a shy, quiet, insecure kid to a star of the stage.  Okay, not a star.  But little, reticent Dougie was no more.  No, Doug became great things – a sword dancer in Brigadoon, the mighty-fisted Bosun’s Mate in HMS Pinafore, the clean-cut baritone in a barbersharp quartet called “Three Sharps and a Fat.”  (I was one of the Sharps.  Good-friend Jer, a tenor – svelte now but heavier then – was our Fat.) 

Sure, other great things happened in high school.  I met girls, fell in love, fell out of love, imagined myself a great thinker and writer, became philosophical about some things, spiritual about others, swam my heart out competitively … the latter so important that to this day water remains a security blanket.  And I learned things, like the healthy limits of drink and smoke, and the power of helping others.

But choir was my Hallelujah time, when all seemed truly right with the world.

And so when I heard of this reunion through Jer and others, it was a clarion call.  Never mind that I’d not sung in any organized way for years.  Never mind that flats and sharps seemed more distant than Flatt and Scruggs. 

I was going to do this, damnit.  I owed it to A-Choir.  I owed it to myself.

My worries didn’t stop on the drive to St. Louis.  I’d been testing my voice the prior week, singing tunes in the car mainly during the drive home from work.  I could hit those low notes, but the high ones could peel paint off the dashboard.

And so as Cindy and I drove east, I imagined the worst, especially when it was time to reach the stage.

Rehearsing!

After greeting friends rarely seen – a gift in itself – we gathered for our one-day rehearsal.  The line-up would include five of Miss Rep’s favorites … Emitte Spiritum Tuum (in Latin!), Madame Jeanette, No Man Is an Island, Battle Hymn of the Republic and the Hallelujah Chorus.  Oh, we’d also end with The Lord Bless You and Keep You.

It was a jovial group of singers, mostly gray-haired like myself and numbering more than 65.  But I learned quickly that, unlike me, nearly all of them had continued singing in choirs of one sort or another. 

On the one hand, that wasn’t good.  I remember this recorded song by Art Garfunkel called “All I Know,” and during it you can hear, quite distinctly, a cello so off key it makes your teeth hurt. 

I feared being the cello.

On the other hand, having powerful, confident voices by both shoulders can hide much. “Heck,” I thought. “I can mouth the words if it comes to that.”

But that was a cop out.  I so wanted to be the powerful, confident voice of 1973.

“Doug, you just need to do it,” I told myself. “Just belt it out.  Open wide, sing strong, hope for the best.”

The director, Barbara Love Sarich (class of ’62), didn’t hesitate to get us going.  No warm-ups, no scales.  Instead, we plunged right in to Emitte Spiritum Tuum.

Three things immediately occurred to me:  I could still read music, I could still fake Latin.

And, good God, I could still sing.  Bolstered by my fellow basses, my voice rang confident and true.  Sure, I kept it safe, singing the lowest bass line possible.  But I was not only keeping up, I was contributing.  My weeks of doubts and fears rolled off like water.

By the second page of music, I was no stinking cello.  I was a basso profundo!

And we sounded glorious, the Latin and the harmonies in a sacred embrace. It was magic, and we all felt it.  I expected the Pope to walk in.

But rehearsals are one thing, live performances another.  Even when I was at my prime 39 years ago, I would get nervous before going on stage.  Not sure why.  Shyness never completely leaves a person, I think.

The next day, we filed in to the auditorium to our appointed seats.  There we were to sit and wait until it was our turn to mount the stage.  There was an ample crowd.  I assured myself that, given the reason for the concert, they would be forgiving.

I glanced around.  The auditorium had not changed much. It was my favorite place at high school … because of choir but also because I was active in the light crew.  “Quite a few memories here,” I told the guy sitting next to me.  So many.

After the concert, friends gather.

And then our turn came.  As we marched up, to calm my nerves, I forced myself to think of why I was doing this.  “This is for Mom and Dad,” I told myself.  “They’d so enjoy this.”  And for Cindy … and my siblings, I thought, each of whom also sang in A-Choir.

And of course for the new piano and the young singers who would learn at its feet. 

But ultimately, and selfishly, I was doing this for the pure joy of it.

And so we began.  And as before, the first notes shed the fear, stopped the sweat, cleared the voice.  Freed the spirit.

I sang big.  I sang strong … triumphant. 

I was back. 

Hallelujah.