good evening and a familiar tune

Pat Michaels, who does the music for chapel at EDS, had a brilliant idea this year: an evening of sung arrangements of Psalm 23. They ranged from Haitian (in Creole, thanks to a cantor who knew it; the rest of us bumbled along as best we could on the refrain) to Bobby McFerrin to Anglican chant to African American spiritual.

And there was one arrangement of Psalm 23 by Howard Goodall. It's one you can hear on this CD, but you can also hear it every time the opening credits of an episode of The Vicar of Dibley. I love that psalm arrangement, which was actually written as the theme song for the series. It's got a wonderful center section you don't hear from the Dibley opening credits, and the whole thing is just gorgeous -- simple and beautiful.

And I sang the soprano solo. It's just three brief passages, none in a particularly high or low range, but I was still a bit nervous -- I really wanted to do it justice, and I wasn't feeling in full voice. People tell me it was good.

I've only recently begun to sing things like this -- or like "Great Day," with its high b-flat I blogged about last week. I came to seminary thinking that I was an alto -- on the low side of alto at that -- and an alto whose voice was suitable for rock, blues, punk, and maybe a bit of folk (people compared me to Michelle Shocked and Amy Ray a lot). I thought my vocal range at best was pretty much the same as Bono's.

Singing in the EDS chapel choir, and with the encouragement of its director, I discovered that I'm actually a soprano. And with more encouragement, I started to find out that I could sing things not accompanied by an electric guitar, and sing them in public, and people wouldn't run screaming from the room. He encouraged me to take voice lessons, and I did, from an amazing teacher, for a few months.

I still have no real idea of what I sound like when I'm singing anything usually sung by people with classical training. I've heard recordings of my singing rock and folk and whatnot, though I have generally gone to great lengths to avoid hearing recordings of my gigs. But I haven't been recorded singing in chapel, or singing since I've had voice lessons. I've though of recording myself, but my building is just too noisy for it, EDS housing policy prohibits music rehearsal without the explicit consent of all neighbors, and maybe I just haven't had the courage.

So I know what it feels like when I sing that way. I know how my face, head, and body feel when I'm singing the way my voice teacher said was using the resonant spaces that I didn't know I had before I started singing at seminary. But I don't know what it sounds like.

I should try to find a way to hear it sometime. I do love singing!