Singing in Public – A Tragedy

I was talking to my little sister the other day and she told me a story about how she was asked to sing in church and ended up crying during the song because of a recent tragedy in her ward (congregation).  Apparently it was pretty awkward and she ended up leaving the stage as soon as she finished singing – even before the accompanist had finished.  To make her feel better, I told her this story.

Several years ago I was in the exact same ward my little sister is now.  I was dating The Man at the time, and very eager to show him how amazing I was.  So when a friend and I were asked to sing a duet at Christmastime, I jumped at the chance. 

You can find the proper adjective for my singing voice somewhere between okay and good, but I don’t know if I’d go so far as to call it great.  I was feeling awesome about this duet though.  My friend and I just harmonized really well and it resulted in this really strong, really beautiful sound (or maybe it was all in my imagination).  I made sure The Man came to at least one practice since he wasn’t going to be there the day of the performance.  Everything went smoothly and I was stoked.

Fast-forward to the day we were set to perform.  Out of nowhere these butterflies erupted in my stomach.  The Man wouldn’t be there, but plenty of other people were – what if we sounded terrible?  What if we messed up?  What if everyone in the congregation would just be counting the seconds until we stopped singing?  It was bad.  We practiced one last time before church started and were sounding good, but nothing could ease my troubled heart.

And then church started.

And then it was time for us to sing.

We started out strong.  I can’t remember what the song was called, but I distinctly remember there was a line that said “for I was only a small shepherd boy” and since we were both girls we decided to change that one lyric to “girl,” and I always forgot to change it.  I was focusing on remembering that one word so that we wouldn’t sing two different words and ruin the entire song (at least, that’s what I imagined would happen if I sang the wrong word).

About midway through the song things were going awesome.  You could feel the spirit of the Holy Ghost in the room as we sang about Christ and all He did for us.  And then.

My voice cracked.

Voices crack when you sing.  It’s just a thing.  I have a pretty low range and when I have to go higher than like a middle G things get a bit iffy (sad, I know).  If I’m singing in the shower, in the car, to my cat, or pretty much any time other than singing in public I can crack and keep going no problem.  I guess usually I do a little chuckle at my inability to sing “high.”  This was not one of those times.

Back to the story.  My voice cracked.  I giggled a bit.  My friend gamely tried to continue singing as I sniggered.  Apparently I cracked mentally as well due to the stress, because I just could not stop giggling.  After about three awkward bars she started giggling too.  And then we were both up there, trying so hard (and failing) to stop giggling as tears rolled down our cheeks.  The pianist continued as strong as ever.  The crowd looked on in horror.  Every once in a while we would get a word or two out in an attempt to keep the song going, but mostly we just giggled for about a minute and a half until the song was over.

“So,” I told my little sister, “our family is just destined to make fools of themselves singing in that ward.  You had no choice in the matter – it’s fate.”

And no, I have not sung in church since.  At least not as a solo or duet.