2/15/2011 - singing in an a cappella group. . .

Last night, Sam and I drove out in the fuzzy Valentine's Day rain so I could audition to be the newest baritone for Rapid Transit A Cappella.  I expected the audition to be a standard warm-up-and-sing kind of experience, where I would sing some scales, then sing my prepared song (a slightly modified version of Tom Petty's "Free Fallin'") while they nod and jot notes down and then say, "Thanks.  You'll hear from us soon." 

And part of the process did involve a terrifying two minutes where I stood on a stage, alone, and sang: just me, an otherwise silent room, and eight captive faces.  I had practiced my best Petty impression numerous times throughout the weekend, each time feeling more confident than the last, but when I faced these eight strangers, albeit very friendly strangers, I felt like I could hardly catch my breath though I stood perfectly still. 

I felt completely exposed, like I was naked and out on a treeless field.  Which actually wouldn't have been so much of a problem, as in my younger day, I had once entered a karaoke competition at a gay bar where I sang Prince's "Kiss" while stripping off everything but a pair of boxer briefs and a hand-drawn tattoo of Prince's graphical moniker on my chest.  Didn't think twice about doing it.  Still, I lost to a big black girl who sang (and I mean, sang) "Midnight Train to Georgia," so I don't feel so bad.  Oddly, I felt less nervous then than I did last night, completely clothed and singing something actually not ridiculous.

I felt weak while I was stood up there, though I honestly couldn't feel much of my body at all; I just knew that if I moved, even just to take a hand to pat out the rhythm on my thigh, I may very well have crumbled into a mass of spaghetti noodles.  That's how I felt--noodley.   Holding the "freeeeeeeee" of the chorus made my bottom lip quiver, which inadvertently gave my voice a nice, round vibrato.  I remember thinking at the moment, "Hey, these nerves are helping!  My vibrato sounds better than ever, how cool!  Oh, but wait!  This is pop music and not a classical opera piece, and I don't want to seem stodgy, so I should probably do something to lessen the vibrato as much as possible.  But still, how cool!"  Then, while trapped in my internal monologue, I flubbed some lyrics.

Still, I think it made it through OK, but that wasn't the memorable part of my experience.  Something else took me completely by surprise: I was asked to learn a few lines of simple melodies and sing it as if I were already a part of the group. 

Afterwards, while sitting in the car and coming down from an adrenaline high as Sam drove us home, I kept thinking back to Iris Firstenberg, the speaker at an innovative thinking seminar I attended recently, and how she implored us all to "bring the future into the present."  I truly learned what she meant by that last night.  As I stood amidst the group, singing my very simple line of "doon-doon-doon-ba-doom" and hearing it fit in with eight other voices, like a jigsaw piece interlocking with its counterparts, I couldn't help but smile a little (and subsequently veer off-key) as I tried to wrap my head around what was happening.  I was singing in an a cappella group.  I could barely believe it, so I had to tell myself again: I was singing.  With a group.  A cappella.

I saw my future then, and knew what I wanted it to include.

A girl beat-boxed beside me; others sang the melody. Another did a cool little "wah-na wah-na" at the end of the chorus like a scratching record.  They all sang while they moved around me, almost like sharks smelling their prey.  They said it was so everyone could have a chance to hear my voice, but I think it was more to assay my fit for the group.  Whether they thought favorably or not, I won't know until at least the beginning of March.  Even if they didn't, I still had the opportunity, if only for a brief few minutes, to do something I had always wanted to do, from the moment I first saw the UC Berkeley Men's Octet to every collegiate a cappella concert I attended thereafter: I was a part of an a cappella group. 

It felt so awesome.

Even if I do not hear from them again, do not get in, I will still have known this feeling.