Let me break this photo down for you. I'm somewhere in the front row...with all the cartoon, bow tied freaks. Yeah, they really did make us wear polyester bow ties that competed with our 4-year-old heads in the size category. That was absolutely the worst part of these so-called "choir robes," however the "robe" part definitely added insult to injury (I swear at least one kid probably keeled over and hurt his head due to the weight of the bows. Did they have to add the tails? Aren't gigantic bow ties embarrassing enough?). It was basically a little "ghostie" costume made for an infant and somebody cut the heads off so you could see all our pretty faces. It was a little drape-y sheet that didn't reach past our hips with a hole for our heads...no arm holes or anything like that. Awesome. What a brilliant idea: let's put huge annoying things in front of 4-year-olds' faces. They won't pick at them or anything!
I would also like to point out the sad little youth choir up by the altar. They are wearing what I dubbed the "stinky gold robes." I named them that because they smelled bad. What a color! Why would you pick gold polyester? Maybe it was rayon. Are those the only two fabrics they make choir robes out of? They all feel terrible! When I was forced to wear these, years later, I was also ashamed of the shiny green yokes they put on us. Yeah, those things that look like neckties. Those were weird. Though we all got great amusement from rolling them up and letting them fall back down when we were waiting to go into the sanctuary.
Seriously, were our choir directors trying to make us look like the Heaven's Gate cult? Sure felt like that. One of the things I always took for granted, though, was the huge proportion of knowledgeable singers/music readers in most of my past choirs. Now I am with a volunteer choir that I feel is very good, but there are definitely a greater number of people who severely need help finding their notes, finding where to come in, and don't know how to sight read. Not that there's anything wrong with that, especially if you're not a musically inclined person. It's just not what I'm used to.
We had a concert this past weekend, and I had a solo (yay me!). It was kind of hokey, due to it being a patriotic concert, and the fact that we were playing with a concert band. I said hokey, not bad. I thought it was actually very good...until we hit the "Patriotic Sing-along." Yay. It was a medly of songs that most people know, and the audience was encouraged to sing along. I didn't know "Caissons Go Rolling Along," though I recognized the tune as soon as I heard it, and I think that's about it. My seat mate, on the other hand, pointed out three that she didn't know, one of which was was the Marine's Battle Hymn. I know the tune from Camp Longhorn where I went through their Marina program. The words, however are completely different.
When we got to that song, she dropped out, and I practically shouted, "FROM THE HALLS OF OUR CAMP MERIT STORE TO THE SHORES OF...I don't know the right words." Whoops. Every time we got to that point, I had to make a concerted effort to look at the words so that I didn't completely embarrass myself. So in the end, the concert went well, I didn't screw up, we didn't have to wear ghostie costumes with hideous bow ties, and none of us sounded like this:
Shout out to Florence Foster Jenkins, RIP.
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