Amplitude and something not so pleasant

Well, Amplitude was fun. Quite a waste of time, but fun anyway. Don’t know why we had to come so early when we were sitting around in the tiny dressing room waiting for most of the time. Haha! Some of them went to the open house and brought back balloons and started playing with the helium. So funny! Heidi was so cute with her Britney Spears helium induced impersonation. And Adyll trying to sing his Qui Tollis (super bass part). Hope they upload the video they took. The actual performance…not much to say. UCC Theatre is tiny also. I guess I’m too used to the Hall. Anyway, at the debrief, it was pretty sweet when Harris(?) said that it’s a lot of the seniors last performance with us and then the choir suddenly broke out into a spontaneous rendition of Linden Lea. Awwww… Haha! NUS Choir rocks!

And, I managed to get started on my Grammaticalisation essay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yay!!!!!!!! Got started and saw the light and a potential research point. Thank god! I don’t feel so overwhelmed by it anymore.

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Alright, now, on to a bit more unpleasant stuff. [rant]

You know, there are times when I totally agree with a lot of the rest of the church regarding Jubilate choir being elitist and showing attitude. Take the upcoming Chrism Mass for instance. For those who don’t know, the Chrism Mass happens on Holy Thursday and in this mass, all the priests gather to con-celebrate with the Archbishop, renew their priestly vows and to bless the sacramental oils used for the cathecumun, confirmation and anointing of the sick. Quite a big event involving the entire archdiocese in Singapore. 150 priests. And this year, St Stephen’s was fortunate enough to be chosen as the church to host this event, traditionally celebrated at the Cathedral. What’s more, St Stephen’s just finished the church renovation, so, from an outsider POV, the Church’s eyes are on st Stephen’s and expectations will be high.

So, let’s talk about the combined choir. This choir’s to be helmed by Paul and Valerie from the Saturday Evening Cantus Firmus Choir. On the first practice, I was more or less horrified that I was the only one coming from Jubilate. Even the lao pok Sunday Evening choir sent a sizeable group. On that day, Uncle X also looked a little taken aback and asked what happened to the rest of my choir. So I said the excuse, oh you know, Thursday morning, work day, school day. Then he said that he was hoping for the strength to come from us. I didn’t know how to answer. Was I to say that my members just weren’t interested to sing for this mass? (Don’t deny. This is the vibe I get. Do you expect the other choirs/congregation to think differently?) So anyway, I suppose Paul & Val just decided to deal with it and pull in their contacts from other churches to help make up strength. Then (whoopee) I was told 4 members would sing. on the Friday rehersal/run through with Fr Ignatius, only 1 of these showed up and he was giving out this ‘I don’t want to be here’ vibe. This coming Thursday is the actual event. Reporting time 8.30am for the 10.30am mass. Again the complaint, ‘what for come so early??’ I don’t even know how to respond to this anymore. Hello? This isn’t just any other old mass you know? (Anyway, sorry I’m singling you out in this rant. You just happened to be the last straw that pushed all my wrong buttons.)

As much as we might like to ‘organisationalise’ St Stephen’s, the fact is, it will never be the kind of organisation we want. We just have to deal with it and make it work. No matter what, we are a part of the church ministry, we have to work towards the good of the church and not for personal gain or glory. Jubilate’s image in this church is mixed and also growing exceedingly bad. From Uncle X’s comment quoted earlier, I can tell that there are those who look up to our choir and accept that we are good at what we do and we are going to be the future of the church (cliche but true). On the other hand, I was talking to a friend who had left Jubilate, asking why don’t she come back since she obviously wants to sing. Part of her reply that really stuck with me was this: “Your youths are different from our youths.” I felt so bad when she said this. After Friday’s rehersal, Aunty Y was commenting that it’s not fair that my members come and go as they please regarding the combined choir. Everyone else can take leave to come for rehersals and sacrifice time for this event. Why can’t we? Again, I don’t know how to answer.

Valerie never spoke to me regarding this issue but she sent me an sms that exuded a pissed vibe. But I get it. Having once been a conductor trying to manage a combined choir like this, it’s stressful. Add on to the fact that this is one of the biggest masses St Stephen will ever host. It’s not fair for her to have to source for members and worry about whether the members will be showing up or not. Last year the old Jubilate did something like this too during the Easter Vigil combined choir. They didn’t get back on whether they wanted to join or not and suddenly appeared en masse less than an hour before the actual Vigil mass expecting to be joining the choir’s singing. Choirs don’t work that way. Especially not for a choir singing for a mass that is a high mass and not a regular mass. Grow up. You know Peter Low’s choir? How did they manage to get themselves to the standard they are now? It’s because of tons of hard work and dedication. One of his members once said to me that Peter Low doesn’t allow his members to miss practice (even for regular masses). He’d kick out members who don’t take his choir seriously. This is a problem in our choir I think. That we take choir as a hobby and come and go as and when we like and we don’t take it seriously at all. The thing is, it’s not. This choir is like a job, only you don’t get paid. You have duties to fulfil and you do them and whatever’s associated with them.

Let me get back to the Chrism mass issue. It’s not about fun, like the Christmas mass or Easter Vigil mass. It’s much larger than that. Like I said, the whole archdiocese will be watching us. Watching. Judging. I happened to attend the LMC meeting and they brought up last year’s chrism mass. They were evaluating it. Evaluating the choir and the songs and how good it was. Do you really want people to talk bad about us? Will they look at the St Stephen’s combined choir and cringe? How many of them are actually from St Stephen’s? Not many. What disappoints me most today was when one of my members said, “I’m just doing this as a favour to you. They’ve got enough people. Why do I still need to be around?” Maybe I misunderstood (hopefully), but I saw that as – there’s nothing in it for me, no recognition or benefit or anything so why should I attend?

Ok, I admit, it’s very hard to do extra things that you think won’t do you good. But that’s why people seem unhappy with our choir I think. We’re too self centered for our own good and the other church people don’t like it. We can talk all we like about wanting to be more welcoming and supportive and inspirational etc etc. But are we actually doing anything about it? It’s not about adaptation anymore, or expecting others to change for us and adapt to us. It’s about swallowing our pride and changing our own attitudes enough to fit in with the rest of the church. We have to stop being have such a “me” attitude in this church. Not just the self centeredness, we have to get rid of this, ‘you’re all not good enough for me’ attitude. A combined choir is NOT Jubilate plus some other random people and we have to stop thinking that way. St Stephen’s doesn’t revolve around us.

And one more thing, stop making stupid comments about the Saturday Evening choir members. SHE can sing miles better than anyone in Jubilate can and you know it. Even the tone deaf girl. At least she shows a level of commitment to the choir that NONE of us show. So stop criticising people (especially not publicly) unless you think you can do better. Even then, you better prove it or else just shut up.

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So, I don’t know if this rant is going to do any good. I just feel like I have to say something and I’ve said it and I’m done here. [/rant]

~ by mezzogal on March 17, 2008.