Titles

Last night I subbed for a soprano at her church choir rehearsal.  I am still not used to this practice- hiring section leaders and then they have to find subs if they are sick or cannot be there.  It's not that I have never heard of this before, but it's more that it happens on such a large scale, at many churches, even if they are not very big.  So, the situation was a little rough for my particular voice.  Perhaps I give myself too many excuses for my voice, but my voice seems to be very peculiar to me.  It's a little clunky, not always smooth depending on where it sits, and a little tricky to "control" (I know I know- we don't control our voices).  So I was singing soprano and there was a split.  I wasn't sure which part the person I subbed for was, so I didn't sing the first split to hear what note was missing (there were only a total of four sopranos).  I heard the high A was missing, so I jumped in and sang it.  When we finished the piece, the lady next to me turned and said, "Couldn't find your note there for a minute?"  And kind of giggled.  I'm never sure how to respond to something like that.  So I just smiled and continued to pay attention to the director.  It was a tough room to sing in- very dead and we were sitting so close together, that I felt like I couldn't sing out.  Then when I try to sing, it sounds less than awesome.  I know I shouldn't listen and should just use what good technique feels like.  The difficulties were that I was sitting down and we were so cramped in a room with dead space.  Overall it was fine, but I wasn't the vocal leader I wanted to be.

I'm listening to John Adams' "Harmonium" right now.  Starting to review the masterworks I will be tested on at the end of the year.

I was walking to the coffee shop this morning and I ran into a professor at a crosswalk.  He's not my professor, nor will he ever be.  He is a professor that insists on all students (graduate included) calling him Dr.  He's able to request that and I have no problem calling him by his titled name.  So, I saw him at a crosswalk this morning with a friend, both wearing santa hats.  I said hello and he introduced me to his friend as Dr as well.  But yet gave them my first name.  If he is going to insist on titles with a person  I meet on the street, then call me Mrs., which is my title.

Two more days and then it's home for Christmas (actually, late tomorrow night).