Vocal chord stretching

I miss singing; not that I don't sing all the time (much to the chagrin of my daughter), but I miss doing formal music with a choir. So, when a couple of my friends decided to join a group that will be performing Handel's Messiah in May, I was really excited! Unfortunately, I missed the audition a couple of weeks back due to a scheduling conflict, and I was nervous that they either had enough women singers or wouldn't let me sing because I simply hadn't tried out. However, after receiving a glowing recommendation from my friend, the conductor invited me to sing in the soprano section. I'm technically more of a mezzo than a true soprano, but I figured I could do it. I've sang Unto Us a Child Is Born and (of course) the Hallelujah chorus, and I've seen Messiah performed several times, so I'm familiar with the piece.

The next hurdle was finding someone to babysit. Having to pay a babysitter occasionally so hubby and I can go out is fine, but every week would prove to be a bit costly. The rehearsals are in the evening, but on the same night my husband teaches class at the seminary, so there is about a two and a half hour gap between the time I leave and the time he gets home. I was praying about what to do when I got an e-mail from a friend who offered to watch our kids every week so that I could go to practice. What a providential gift!

Then, I printed out the PDF file that was our music score. Holy cow, there are CHORAL arrangements that go this high?! I'm used to solo parts for soprano easily going up into the stratosphere, but a choral group? Almost every song hits an A above high C, and there are a couple that even go to a B (for you non-musical people, that's at the tippy-top of my range). And I am SOOOO out of practice, it's not even funny. First I was praying that, like, five altos would get sick and David (our conductor) would be begging me to sing alto, but alas, no such luck. So, I just stood between two really good singers and mouthed the higher notes. Oh, and did I mention that the whole thing is in HEBREW??!!! It's not as bad as it sounds -- the music is written phonetically to accommodate us poor non-Hebrew speakers (of which there are quite a few), but I still find myself tripping over phrases and mispronouncing words while practicing at home. However, I was pleased to discover that the choir group is good but not great, so I'm actually in my element here.

My goal this week is to make a habit of doing vocal warm-ups every day to try to get my voice back into shape. I need to be able not only to hit the high notes, but also to make the jumps from chest voice to head voice and land on pitch, which can be rather difficult at times! Despite all this, I am really looking forward to doing this piece. If you pass by my house this week, you'll probably hear me belting out parts of Messiah!