Putting the "Mess" in "Messiah"
Peter B. Steiger
12/20/04

I'll make a deal with you.  If you can forgive me for the awful title of
this story, I'll promise not to make any "I can Handel it" puns.  Fair
enough?  I hope you appreciate what a difficult sacrifice it is for me to
make that promise.

My wife is a big fan of that little operetta penned by Handel a few thousand
years ago, and the first year we moved to Cheyenne she was excited to read
an ad for an upcoming community singalong.  I have inadvertently
participated in this act of mass musical hysteria once or twice before, when
at the end of a performance of the musical "Scrooge" the cast asked the
audience to all join in for a few rousing choruses of Hallelujah.

This first Cheyenne participation was about the same.  Real singers did all
the solos and sohis and inflammaturas and whatnot, and then the audience
helped raise the rafters with the Hallelujah Chorus.  I came prepared with
my own copy of the music, but I still couldn't keep up with some of the
places where 18 different vocal parts are singing 27 different syncopated
lyrics.

We missed the next several years, mostly because we never seemed to find out
about it until after the fact ("pssst... don't tell the Steigers.  Remember
the 1997 performance?"  "Are you kidding?  Who could ever forget 1997?
People in Siberia are still talking about it!") but also because the few
times someone let slip the date and location, we had other commitments for
that day.

This year, everything fell into place:  We had the date well in advance so
we were able to keep that day open except for a birthday party or two; I had
been studying up on the music so I knew when to hit those Hallelujahs with
full force; we had both kids sedated so they wouldn't fight so much while we
were being simultaneously spiritual and musical.

The turnout wasn't quite what we expected.  There were maybe 18 people in
the church, and of those several were sitting in the "non-singers" section.
My section - bass - was completely vacant.  The director came out and asked
for a show of hands for each part, and sure enough I was the only one to
raise a bass hand.  That's when things got really scary.  As he explained
it, the audience WAS the choir - for the whole thing!  Now, you may recall
that there are several solos throughout; he cheerfully suggested that all
the womenfolk join in to sing the alto and soprano solos together, and he
made a big show of thanking the star tenor who would be handling the tenor
solos.  That's when a dark dread crept over me, and I regretted that moment
when I admitted to singing bass.  I guess director guy saw the look of
terror in my face, because after a moment he added "I suppose I can try some
of the bass solos, although it's been a long time."

As it happens the first few pieces after a musical introduction are all
tenor solos, so our star performer got up and did some operatic type
shenanigans that made me dizzy trying to follow the notes as they bounced up
and down the staff.  He got a well-deserved round of applause after he
stopped, and I realized that as a barbershopper who can manage "Sweet
Adeline" on a good day, I was hopelessly outclassed and I prayed that our
director was up to the task.  I sure wasn't.  I had already taken an advance
peek at some of the upcoming bass solos and they weren't so low as one would
hope; they called for some pretty shrill (for a bass) notes up there as well
as more of those rollercoaster arpeggios and stigmatas that drag a single
syllable on for all twelve days of Christmas.

There were a few of those in the choral parts, too, but the tenor section
took pity on me (and our overworked director) by pitching in.  That's good,
because most of the way through I was singing material I had never seen and
rarely heard before, and then only from a dozing position in the pew.
During those rollercoaster bits I just wavered my voice randomly up and down
as I followed the notes up and down the staff, and a couple of times when
everybody was singing different sets of words I got completely lost and had
to stop and ask directions.

I guess all things considered I had a better time than our birthday boy, who
was celebrating his jump to teenhood in the most boring way he could ever
have imagined.  Whenever I looked over at him he was either sprawled across
six or seven rows of pews or staring off into space with a shellshocked look
of complete despair.

My daughter, on the other hand, seemed to have devoted her time to making me
look bad.  Where I had trouble even with familiar parts, she plugged ahead
with her alto part - which she has never seen OR heard before - and kept up
with the experts a few rows ahead of us.  Just out of spite I switched to
alto to see if she was having an easier time because the notes were easier,
but hers jumped around in just as confusing a way as the bass part.

None too soon we got to the big finish, and everybody stood up to knock off
a few hallelujahs.  To make up for all my previous missed notes I belted out
my "for... the Lord GOD omNIpotent reeeeiiiiiigneth" loud enough to break
some windows.  I still got lost a couple of times when everybody made up
different words to sing all at the same time, but at least I was lost in a
familiar neighborhood, and I caught up in time for the final prolonged
"hallelujah" with everybody else.

We finished up with a few easy carols, and although I pretended to read the
bass part out of the hymnal I was actually singing a nice comfortable
barbershop arrangement.

Well, I have another whole year before the next attempt so I'm going to
start studying now... not just the Hallelujah Chorus but everything that has
a bass part from beginning to end.  Hopefully I can learn the parts well
enough that I won't be out of place, and by this time next year I can
confidently say that I'm sure I can Han... oh, there goes my promise.