I miss singing

It's Christmas time and I miss the choir. Since 2nd year high school, I was with our parish choir and then I got busy with UP Med Choir during med school. Now I am unaffiliated and I really miss singing, especially during this Christmas season. It's my 2nd out-of-a-choir year after spending 18 years of Christmas in a choir. That includes the endless carolling nights, gigs and parties. I guess anyone could understand my anxiety.

At least I had some larynx action when I was in New York last year. I sang with the choir in the Philippine Consulate for simbang gabi. Most of them are members of the DLSU and I must say, they are really good. One of the members of the choir is a broadway chorus girl. She invited me to audition for their choir at St. Malachy the Actor Church. They were mostly broadway performers and this one is a pinoy. Golf claps. Anyway, now I am swamped with work and I could not find time for virtually anything. I have an article due two days ago and I've been pounding on the keyboard for the last 2 hours. Haay.

Last night I went to my first simbang gabi for the season. I told myself that it would be nice to check on my old parish choir again. They are the 4th generation of our parish choir and somehow I know most of them. I spent 4-5 years as choirmaster and somehow these kids are part of my ancient group. I was the choir master for the youth choir and these kids who used to be 9 and 10 year olds are now in college. Now I feel REALLY old.

I felt really, really old when I noticed this: There was no organist in the choir. Glen, my younger--albeit 20x better--protege wasn't there and I am sure that the orchestration was his style. I was surprised that the accompanying music was from a iPOD Nano! I saw it when one of sopranos lifted it to change the accompaniment. Whoa! I was really amazed with the technology at present and the ingenuity of the younger generation to use it. I thought MedChoir was technologically advanced for using NoteWorthy to study music pieces. We used to transcribe pieces via NoteWorthy and posting it in our egroups, where any member can download it. The piece can be played as a whole or in separate parts. I can isolate my part (I am a bass 2) so i can SERIOUSLY study it. Well, playing the choir accompaniment with an iPOD was waaay too cool for me. I guess that's the best use of technology I have came across this year.