Adventures of a clapped-out retiree: Sing-a-long-a-Lou!

 Sing-a-long-a-Lou!

I’ve joined a choir.

Needless to say, it isn’t one of those choirs where you have to prove you can sing by auditioning. I’d never be accepted by one of those. I have a vivid memory of music lessons in secondary school where our teacher made everyone sing a solo in front of the rest of the class. I felt sick with nerves for days before it was my turn, and on the big day I stood up next to the piano, at which the teacher clonked out some tune or other, probably something from Joseph and His Technicolour Dreamcoat, and found that no sound whatsoever would emerge from my mouth. Eventually, almost wetting myself with embarrassment, I started to squeak feebly, so quietly that no one would have been able to hear me over the noise of the piano. No one was listening anyway, but it was still one of those terrible moments that has become etched into my psyche. Whoever said schooldays were the best days of your life was a liar.

 

I have, ironically, always loved singing. I sing around the house all the time, scaring the cat. As a child, I was dreadfully stage-struck but lacked all signs of actual talent. As a three-year-old I appeared on the stage of our local theatre with the rest of my ballet-class but it was a disaster. I’d been practicing my little solo for weeks – I had to do a dance while I pegged washing on the line, and I could do this competently at home or in the ballet rehearsal room. However, as soon as I stepped onstage, a murmur went round the auditorium as a hundred mums went ‘Ah, isn’t she lovely!’ or words to that effect, thereby drawing my attention to the fact that I was on a stage with a lot of people watching me. Of course, I immediately panicked and ran off-stage, never to return.

 

I loved musicals, however, and used to ‘perform’ numbers from them at home, making my little sister join in. My dad used to sing in working men’s clubs, and you’d think I might have inherited his ability, but I didn’t. A friend and I once sang ‘Frere Jacques’ in a round, and danced the cha cha, in a holiday camp talent show, and we came third, but that was only because we were very young and probably still had the cute factor. We obviously couldn’t shake off the showbiz bug, however, because, a few years later, cute days long behind us, we put on a show for our Girl Guide Company and invited our favourite teacher from school, Mr Dodd, and his wife (who was a folk singer herself) to come and watch us. Thinking about this now, I find myself cringing. I can’t imagine what I was thinking. We choreographed and performed our own dance number to Abba’s song Waterloo, involving a long wooden bench for reasons no one involved can now recall, and followed this up with a rendition of a song called ‘All I want is black bean soup’, which we’d heard on an episode of Starsky and Hutch.

 

The more I write this, the more I recall my childhood love-hate relationship with the stage. I had very little talent and hardly any self-confidence, but I felt compelled to perform. After watching the film version of Gypsy on TV, I remember organizing some kids in the playground to re-enact the Let Me Entertain You number, complete with cartwheels! I remember singing Paul McCartney’s Don’t go chasing waterfalls over and over again with my little sister, sitting on the stairs in our council house, while my mum had a friend over – what the friend thought of our dreadful singing she never said, but I can imagine! 

        My best friend’s mum was a member of a local operatic company and we used to watch a lot of their performances – one year we were asked to dress up as flapper girls and sell programmes in the auditorium, which I think we both thoroughly enjoyed – it was the dressing up bit of performing without having to do any of the actual performative elements. I went on holiday several times as a teenager with this same girl and her parents, and I recall us both singing a medley of songs from Cabaret [but mostly ‘Farewell, Mein Lieber Herr!’] in the back of their car all the way home from Northumberland. Her mum and dad must have been sick to the back teeth of hearing us trying unsuccessfully to emulate Liza Minnelli.

         Singing the same song over and over again was one of my teenage quirks. 

    It isn’t that I’m a dreadful singer. I’m not tone-deaf or anything. In fact, given the right song and the right circumstances, and usually when I’m alone, I can sometimes produce quite nice sounds. I have a narrow range, however, and I can’t go very high at all, particularly these days. And I get a lot of sore throats and chest infections so my voice is unreliable and my lungs are pretty useless. I actually went through a period of wanting to be an actress, not realizing that being dumpy, plain, with no charisma whatsoever, terrible stage-fright and an uninspiring voice with no power behind it were the sort of things that tend to derail a budding career treading the boards. Don’t put your daughter on the stage, Mrs Worthington, indeed.

        With such disadvantages, you might wonder why I decided to become a teacher. Believe me, so do I. Strangely, I haven’t had stage-fright about going into a classroom to teach, except in the first year or so, or if Ofsted were on the horizon. In fact, I now do private tutoring and I actually miss classroom teaching. I suppose it’s the closest I get to performing. I’ve been invited to read out my poems at prize-givings and open mic nights, but I never have the courage. I didn’t even give a speech at my own wedding. I panic whenever I get an invitation to record a poem for the internet. No one wants to hear my voice, I think. People will be shocked and disappointed!

        Anyway, my friend, B, has a pleasant alto voice, and more importantly has recently retired and is at that stage where she wants to pack every moment with frenetic activity. She wants to swim and walk and garden and go to the theatre and visit RHS gardens and NT properties and go on holiday and join things, on top of looking after her dad and her grandson for several hours a week. To be honest, I have no idea how she fits it all in and I am expecting her to eventually wind down and realise that just having a rest is one of the best things in life. But for now, she needs to be doing stuff and, needless to say, it was she who urged our other old schoolfriend, T, and myself to join the Rock Choir.  T’s voice is also tuneful and pleasant.

        I have strong memories of being in the choir at school. Again, I joined because my friends were joining. I think of myself as quite an independent type, but in fact I end up doing many things serendipitously. The choir didn’t audition but the music teacher did prowl up and down the rows of singers, listening to them. I mostly spent the sessions moving my lips soundlessly and hoping she didn’t notice. My experience of doing the solo in front of the class freaked me out so much I couldn’t bear the thought of singing in front of strangers ever again. I was convinced I’d hit wrong notes and ruin it for everyone else. The thought of this was so horrible to me that I decided miming was preferable. I’ve been assured in recent years that the odd wrong note can’t be heard amongst all the other voices and each voice just adds more depth and richness to the overall sound of a choir.

        So, that’s all right, then.

        The choir we’ve joined is part of an organisation called The Rock Choir which runs choirs all over the country. It’s aims are to draw people together, create a sense of community, get people out of their houses, and cheer people up. So we thought we’d have a piece of that. It costs £300 for the full year of membership, paid in monthly instalments, and that’s a big incentive to stick at it. Personally, I was horrified by the cost, but I guess they have to pay the choir-leaders and the venues.

         Our choir leader is very good – young, skinny, slightly weird, extremely enthusiastic and with absolutely no sense of embarrassment. The other choir members are friendly and they sound fabulous when they all sing together. The songs are not ones I would choose myself but B and T seem to really love them. So far, the three main songs we’ve worked on have been ‘Video Killed The Radio Star’, ‘Jolene’ and ‘Going Loco Down In Acapulco’. One song we did was ‘Perfect’ by Ed Sheeran, a song I hate because the lyrics are just cliché after cliché and the line ‘you in between my arms’ drives me mad, but the choir made it sound lovely. One new member, however – the only bloke – spoiled it by piping up afterwards ‘I thought that was really healing, you know?’. Other than that vomit-inducing moment, I’ve been enjoying the choir, though I can imagine growing weary of the songs.

        It has made me realise how unfit I am, however, and I'm hoping the singing will improve my lung capacity. 

        If you want to join your local rock choir, here's a link:  

https://rockchoir.com/