When I was a kid I used to be really embarrassable. These days it's very much more difficult to do that to me. Why? Well, if you ask me, it's because I have already used up a life-time's embarrassment and gone out the other side - however, during the odd occasion when it does happen, I hold in mind (while wishing the earth would swallow me up, of course) that in about 2 days' time when the mortification wears off, it'll probably make quite a funny story - after all, pretty much all the rest have....
<sigh>
So read on, my friends, and here's hoping that it brings a smile to your day!
JAC
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When I was a kid we did all the local music festivals; not Woodstock or Glastonbury-style festivals, but the sort where everyone sings individually on a stage and then the adjudicator gets up and says how each person did, and who has won. One year was the bicentenary or tricentenary of Purcell’s birth or death or something or that sort. Purcell is not one of my favourite composers but to my dismay, this year Purcell was all there was on offer, and there was not a single song that I liked. Eventually Mum agreed that I only had to do one class, with a song called Dido’s Lament from the opera “Dido and Aeneas”. It’s terribly dour and stately- Dido is basically talking to her sister and saying “Just off to kill myself, love, don’t you worry about it!”; but she was saying it in a minimum of notes, and if I had to do a song for the festival it might as well be one I could actually sing.
So the day came, and though normally about there’d be thirty people scattered around for a class, this time there were about two hundred; the hall was packed! I was nervous anyhow, but this didn’t help at all. A few people we knew from other festivals were there too, so we ended up sitting in a group of about 13. The class started; the competitors went to the stage and sang their songs with varying degrees of success, and I started to get more and more nervous with each passing competitor.
Eventually the previous person finished their song; the applause stopped; and the adjudicator read out my name. I walked up, gave my music to the accompanist and went to stand in the middle of that huge stage. As I took my place my knees turned to water and my mind went into full rabbit-in-the headlights mode, hoping only that when the music got to the right point, the words would come out of my mouth as my brain appeared to have stalled.
After a few minutes, partway into the first verse, the small dark corner of my mind that was still functioning noticed something odd; every so often, at irregular intervals, a little ripple went over the audience. It seemed to start at the front and go to the back like an extremely understated Mexican Wave, and each time it happened it seemed to be slightly more marked.
I couldn’t see exactly what was going on, but out of my peripheral vision, I could just make out this mysterious movement. In the second verse it was worse; now it wasn’t so quick and clean - little pockets of the audience seemed to somehow not be sitting quite as still as music-festival-politeness would demand , but I still couldn’t quantify it.
I finished the song much mystified, took a little bow and glanced round as I went back to my seat, but was not much the wiser. There was the usual scanty smattering of applause which died down more quickly than usual into a slightly different tone of mutter than usual. I was much discomfited; still nothing definable, but it was very definitely not quite right for the usual between-songs gap.
When I got back to where my lot were sitting I was dismayed to find the whole lot of them, all thirteen, hunched over with their hands over their eyes. I sat down next to my Mum, who made no attempt to turn round. “Was it that bad?” I asked.
There was a snort; she started to speak but her voice collapsed into a squeak. After a moment, still not looking at me, she managed to spit out “Do you know what you just sang?”
“What?” The question made no sense to me.
“Do you KNOW......what you just sang?” she hissed, and as she snorted again I realised that her shoulders were shaking – and in fact so were my sister’s, and the other singing teacher’s – and in fact quite a few sets of shoulders throughout the room.
“No.....”
Turns out, I had got the words wrong – only one word in the sentence, but having got it wrong once, had then proceeded through two verses of repeats still with the wrong word every time that phrase came up. Not that amusing you might think – I’d only said “get” instead of “am” – only with my usual genius for misspeaking myself, I’d managed to change the meaning of the whole thing rather substantially.
Imagine how it must have been for the spectator; you’ve just listened to an hour and a half of depressing, frilly music and have another hour or so to go when a pale, dowdy lump of a teen climbs stiffly up onto the stage, mutters her way through a highly baroque recitative, and then, still looking ready to weep, stands to attention and sings in a very depressed manner.
Problem is, instead of singing “When I am laid, am laid in earth” what I came out with, in full baroque splendour, was
“When I get laid, get lai-ai-ai-ai-aid in earth
May my sorrows create no trouble, no trouble in thy breast.
Remember me! Remember me! But ah-ah forget my name!”
Bear in mind that, this being opera, each line as written above is sung twice with varying emphasis in the course of one verse – and then that verse 2 is word-for-word the same as verse one but fancier, so having reduced the auditorium to a state with the first verse I had then stood looking doubly miserable and sung the whole thing all the way through a second time, equally incorrectly but with trills!
Well, whether you’re familiar with the story of Dido’s failed love affair with Aeneas or not, that re-phrasing puts a whole new complexion on the song. My Mum, an incorrigible giggler, had started it; my sister and my Mum’s friend, the other singing teacher, had not been far behind; and with a solid block of thirteen gigglers right in the front of the hall, everyone else hadn’t really had much of a chance. That weird ripple I had noticed had been two hundred people hiding their eyes, biting their thumbs and otherwise manfully trying not to go into hysterics in the middle of a silent(ish) auditorium....
I was mortified. I didn’t know what to do with myself. All around me two hundred people were chortling, wiping their eyes, and grinning sympathetically at me. I wanted to hide under the chairs; but, I thought, at least there was one person in the hall who wouldn’t have got the joke. The adjudicator was this angelic little old lady who, I thought, would at least not have caught the implications of my gaffe. That was about all the solace I could think of, sat in embarrassment in the sniggering hall.
Anyway, the rest of the singers sang; the adjudicator mulled over her sheets and then got up to read the results. Each person only got a quick summary of her comments, but when she got to me, just reading out my name had the entire hall in hysterics again. When they’d quieted down, she commented that there were some inaccuracies of pitch and wording and moved on to the next person, much to my relief. Ah well, I thought; that’s over, at least.
On the way out Mum sent me over to the table by the door to pick up my music and adjudication sheet, and while I was there there was a tap on my elbow. I turned round to find the adjudicator standing there.
“Watch your wording, my dear, “ she told me very seriously. “ ‘Am laid’ has quite a different meaning to ‘get laid’ – but I have to say,” and here she twinkled up at me mischievously, “I enjoyed your performance today. I think it’d be fair to say that it made my day – in fact, no; it made my festival!”
And chortling quietly, she walked back into the hall for the next class.
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JAClement can be found on Twitter @jaclementwriter and is also on Goodreads and once in a while, even Facebook.
"On Dark Shores: The Lady" is the first book in her fantasy series, and is available on Amazon, Smashwords, the Apple iBookstore and B&N.
JAC reads all reviews and loves chatting to readers -if you see her on the forums, she hopes you'll come and say hello!
