Rehearsal was an absolute frustration tonight.

We’ve been singing the same two competition songs for the last two years (maybe a bit longer) and we’ve had the same problem with the ballad. We have an awful time making the key change. One of the reasons is that it’s a minor chord and in barbershop music they can be hard to sing accurately. (Remember we blow the pitch on the pitch pipe and sing, we have no instruments accompany us.)

Another reason is, they keep changing the notes. Because we can’t sing it accurately they keep coming up with different chord combinations and I think I’ve had two learn at least four different versions.

I’d finally mastered it , and in that I’d passed my tape I was very confident about it. I worked like the devil to learn it, too.

So the director changed it again tonight.

I was ready to jump off the risers, and beat her into the ground. The rest of the chorus would have happily followed me.

I can’t begin to describe how difficult it is to unlearn and re-learn something like this. It takes me hours and hours to get it down. I have to sing it over and over and need to have a copy of the music as well as an audiotape to practice to. We weren’t given even one of these things last night and I am lost.

I’m never going to get this right. The frustration is enormous and my blood pressure is through the roof.

Music is supposed to soothe the savage beast.

Ha.

Nothing much happened at school today, which was nice for a change. I was able to get through the day without having anyone flip out or phone me.

The roof will probably blow off the place later this week.