I Did It!

I’ve been in the choir at church for quite some time now and a member of the same church for basically my entire life. I am very comfortable with my voice and sing just about everywhere about anything without a single care in the world. Put me on the spot and ask me to sing by myself? I immediately turn beat red and get really nervous. Go figure.

Singing a solo in front of church has been out of the question for a while now but when our director gave us the parts CDs for this year’s Easter Cantata, I felt drawn towards the solo in “At The Cross”. It’s one of my favorite songs anyway and I felt like the solo was extremely well-suited for my voice. I began singing along to the solo part on the track and ignoring the soprano part when necessary. You wouldn’t believe how nerve-wracking it was for me just to ask our director if he had thought about who was going to get the solo. Then the two weeks of practice afterwards when he still didn’t say. Then that third week, without even telling me privately, he tells everyone right before we start the song that I was going to give it a try. Cue the bright red face that just so happened to match my sweater that day. I wasn’t mad, nope. Just nervous and wanting to know if I had it then or not since there was less than a month before the performance at the time.

I did well sitting there with only the choir members, whom I’m very comfortable with those first few practices, but then I got to practice at the microphone with a few people hanging out in the pews. For some reason, this made me so nervous my voice shook. Everything shook. This made me more nervous. At the end of this last practice before the performance, we were asked if anyone had a bad spot they needed to go over. I requested that we sing my song again and am I ever glad we did. I was able to collect myself and not have my voice noticeably shaking this time.

Today was performance day (we split our Easter Cantata into two parts). I practiced with the track twice on the way in and prepared myself to warm up due to nervousness during the performance by dressing in layers (Hey, those choir robes are hot enough as it is!). What else could I do?

I requested that Matt be there in the service from the very beginning to help calm my nerves beforehand but I couldn’t see him from where I was sitting. Yet another time when x-ray vision would have been really helpful as he was just on the other side of the lectern I would later be standing at and singing my solo. He was right there in the front row happily supporting me.

When it came time for my solo, my heart had already started beating faster and my legs were shaking. A lot. It seems that heels were a bad idea. They were even shaking for at least ten minutes after the song was over and done with. Thank goodness for the lectern that I could shake behind without any worries while I sang without the shake interfering with my voice. Matt recorded the entire song to capture everything and even though I felt very accomplished immediately afterwards, watching the recording was even better. I literally amazed myself and I normally despise any recordings of my own voice. Second service, I was even more comfortable and only shook a little. People who were there for both services told me that second was somehow even better than the first! I was told by countless people how much they enjoyed it and how well I did. Some even accused me of holding out on them. 😉

Yet another thing off of my Day Zero Project List. It feels great! Now that I’ve gotten that first ever solo out of the way, I look forward to more opportunities.

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