Yin Yang

Posted by Braden

No men's chorus for Braden this semester. :-( At callbacks, Sister Hall had each of us sing one by one in groups of 10, say who she wanted to stay, and let everybody else go. Then she had the people who had already sung once do it again and let more go. This continued until there were four of us left. I ended up singing for her five times! Every time, I thought I did really well (by my own standards), and she never gave me anything to try to correct like she did with some people, such as "a little brighter," or "taller vowels," or "you're a little sharp," etc.; so I never got any feedback as to what she didn't like. But there's a blessing in all of this too:

I was feeling really stressed out the other day. With a schedule of 17.5 credits, and weekly volunteering at the Bean museum, and whatever calling I end up with, and there are so many individual projects and assignments for each class to keep track of and at least 2 big term papers/projects that I know of, and home teaching, and scholarship applications, and monthly blogging/interviews, and—and I was just feeling really beat time-wise; didn't know how in the world I would be able to find the time to play or go on dates, etc. And now I suddenly find myself with 5 extra hours every week for the rest of the school year. :) And more than that, because that hour was isolated from other classes on three of the days, I don't have to waste the transition time. And the extra practices. And the days of missing school. And don't get me wrong, I really would have loved to be in it, but I'm happier if I believe now that the pros outweigh the cons. And all these pros really are real pros, too. I'm not just making them up.

Of course, one con is that now my parents have no excuse to come out and see me perform like they did for my two older siblings; it's kind of tradition that they come out freshmen year to see us performing in whatever group we're in. But Involv-A-Palooza has been going on in Brigham Square these past two days, and I've signed up for a bunch of clubs/activities and written down a lot of important dates. And on Friday when I would have been at men's chorus, instead I played volleyball for two hours, and it was wonderful. And I spent Thursday getting all of my assignments and exam dates and requirements for my classes down on two sheets of paper, so I'm feeling more settled. And Friday night I watched my sister Camille get proposed to on stage! And Thursday night after tryouts, Cory cooked some steaks for him and me! (Cory tried out, too, in second tenor, and he went through four rounds of callbacks, and he didn't make it either. He's a good guy; last night my five roomies and I just talked for about an hour in my room. That was fun). And we've started doing ward activities now so I'm getting to know more people, and know them better.

The main bummer in all of this is not so much not being in men's chorus, but rather, not making it. And singing is so much more personal than playing an instrument; bad noises out of a trumpet are because you can't play trumpet—it's the trumpet's fault for making bad noises. Bad noises out of your voice—that's all you. So there's a hint of a doubt now, to always have that voice in the back of my head wondering if I've ever been able to sing well, etc. Fortunately, I'm not fragile enough to accept those doubts; I've had enough positive experiences/reinforcements that one bad one isn't shakin' me. But it's a bummer being told you're not talented enough for something. I have more empathy now for people who haven't been as fortunate as I have in making groups and earning awards. Some of it is how much work you put into it, mind you, and I haven't invested the time in choir like a lot of these boys have, and maybe that lack of technique was the very cause that kept me out. But I'm sure there are some people who can't realistically practice enough to reach their dreams. No 5' 4" kid is ever going to be in the NBA, through no fault of his own. But you adjust—make dreams that are more realistic for yourself, as terrible as that sounds. Personally, men's chorus is still very much do-able; I was obviously close, and I wrote Sister Hall to see if she can't look in her notes to tell me what to work on for the next audition. I'll have to see a semester from now or two years from now if I still want to do it, and then if I make it, but maybe I'll find something more up my alley before then anyway. And until then, I'll find useful things to do with my five extra hours, including the roughly three hours a week of exercise for my new health class. My singing is already acceptable to me. My exercise habits are not. Better to fix the more broken skill, I figure.