If Mozart were a baseball player he would have been a junkball pitcher. I have started practice for a November 13 concert with my church's choral society { http://first-church.org/Choral.htm }. We will be singing Mozart's Coronation Mass opus 339 and his Solemn Vespers Mass (Opus 317) accumpanied by an orchestra. The concert i sang last March gave me confidence. My previous musical experience was being the bad guitarist in a very bad garage band. But when push came to shove I hung when it came time to sing Palestrina and Durufle.
First practice stripped my ego away. Mozart is a changeup artist. We're to going to do some half notes, a couple real eights, sixteenth, whole, some quarters, then you'lld drop an octive, up, down, up down, to the middle ho. Fast. Slow. Rest. The a solo, which no one has asked me to sing. So I'd better clam up.
Really it's like pitching a baseball. Fastball high and tight, low and outside curve, two fastballs, a hard slider at the knees, then a change. Inside, outside, at the letters then the knees. You never really know what is coming.
I found myself looking at several called third strikes and swung at a few more out of the zone.
The worst part is that that I'm sorta kinda picking up on reading music. It may be that I'm just picking up cues from everyone else, but the notes have begun to make sense. I can sort of see the music coming, but not well enough to really execute when the notes come hot'n'heavy. But Mozart's tunes are happy, playful, even joyous. And fun.
It is some surprise to discover how much I enjoy singing classical music. When we do something right it is lovely. It is an honor to sing with these people.
Want to know why? Enjoy this: http://first-church.org/ChoirTourMM.htm