Diary Of The 2021 All City Choir

Day 1

November 1, 2021

So, I am in the All City Choir. I just like singing and stuff like that, and I did this when I was in 6th grade. I had a nice time doing it then, and I'm pretty sure I'll have a nice time doing it now.

All the practices are located in, you may have guessed, Heaton. I swear, the district just favors Heaton for some unknown reason. I mean, not only do they get a say in pretty much all big event decisions, but they also get to lead in those events, and they get better funding than the rest of us do.

And practices are held pretty late, more specifically, 6:30pm to 8:30pm.

Yeah, for us, that is pretty damn late.

I get there, and mark myself present on the chromebook near my school's designated section. There are only 4 people from my school who chose to participate. And about half of the choir is from Heaton, as expected.

The last time I did this, they told me what my section was. I was a soprano. Me being the high pitched 6th grader I was, I was able to reach all the high notes needed. And in 6th grade, we only had 5 songs. 4 of them were in English, 1 was in Spanish. My favorite one that year was the Spanish one, it was called Oye La Musica.

Now, it's different. They have not told me my section, and if I tried to reach half the notes the sopranos did, I would sound like a dying goose. And this year, we have 6 songs:

English
Autumn Vesper
It's All Right
In Meeting We Are Blessed

Spanish
Cantar!

Latin
Festival Sanctus

Hebrew
Dodi Li

I was able to pluck out the melodies for each of these songs on my keyboard at home. Out of all of the ones I have done, my favorite one is Dodi Li. It sounds cool.

Since they didn't tell me what section I was in, my teachers made me choose between soprano and alto. I was tempted to choose alto because it would fit my vocal range a bit more, but since I have done soprano before, I went with soprano.

After I get up there, the music director says that this year, they have an option for mezzo soprano. Which is a fucking coincidence, because my vocal range fits perfectly with mezzo soprano. I volunteer to be a mezzo soprano, and I go to stand with the other people who volunteered for it.

They send each group to a different room to practice. The sopranos go to the choir room, the altos go to the band room, and we stay with the baritones in the auditorium. When I was in 6th grade, there were a good number of baritones. This year, there are only four. 2 of those baritones are from my school.

The first song we work on is Dodi Li, which I am more than ready to sing since it is my favorite. The only part we have to sing goes like:

"Dodi li, va'ani lo, haro'eh, bashoshanim."

Which translates to:

"My beloved is mine, and I am his. The shepard [grazing his flock] among the lilies."

I got that translation straight from my choir book. 

All the other lyrics for the song are solos.  If you want the other lyrics for the song, then here ya go. All translations are straight from my choir book:

Solo 1
"Mi zot ola min hadmidbar. Mi zot ola. M'kuteret mor, mor ulevona. Mor ulevona."
Which translates to:
"Who is this, rising up from the desert. Who is she, rising up. Perfumed with myrrh and frankinscense. Myrrh and frankinscense."

Solo 2
"Libavtini achoti kala. Libavtini kala."
Which translates to:
"You have captured my heart, my sister, my bride. You have captured my heart, my bride."

Solo 3
"Uri, tzafon, uvo'i teiman."
Which translates to:
"Awaken, north wind, and come, south wind."

Yeah, I'm still a bit confused about what this song is supposed to be about. It seems like it's a love song, but I ain't sure. I'm baffled.

We sing half of the songs in our choir folder, and we sound like a fucking mess. None of us really know what we're doing, and none of us really know what notes we're supposed to be singing even though they are literally right in front of us. The entire time, the choir director is carrying us.

Yeah, that's pretty much all the happened. Since it's the first day, I didn't expect much, but I mean, we only get 4 practices before the final performance.

When I first heard that 2 years ago, I was all like "4 PRACTICES? THAT'S LIKE HAVING ONLY 4 PRACTICES BEFORE YOUR BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIPS". But every lesson is about 2 hours long, and we usually get a lot done in those 2 hours.

Hopefully, we sound better on Wednesday.