Singing well is its own reward

I don't do much besides watch athletic competitions these days -- though I keep threatening to start playing tennis with my 34-year old son, and that would get competitive I suspect -- but one thing I do has a resemblance. Performing well in a musical concert requires (at least for me) some of the same disciplines: focus and concentration, the kind of relaxation that feeds intensity, paying attention to what your body is telling you (at least if you're singing), and using what you learned in practice in a way that feels more instinctive than obviously learned. When you do well, whether you win or lose, you have a sense of accomplishment at having given pretty close to the best you had at that particular moment.

The Temecula Vintage Singers concert was this afternoon, and it went really well. David and I had to falsetto on some of the highest tenor notes, but not on all, and we hit pretty much all of them. Everybody else seemed to be in good voice too, and with the possible exception of the first number, we blended pretty well.

Moira Stern sang a couple of tough Bach arias and handled them quite well. The Messiah excerpts were lively and pretty crisp. I think I sang the "Hallelujah" chorus as well as I have in performance. The Vivaldi "Gloria" in the second half was the highlight, I thought. The cello added a lot. I think we remembered almost everything about expression and hitting the notes accurately was just about automatic. Lorian, Darcy and Sarai handled their solo/duet pieces nicely.

I was so pleased that Mark Landsbaum, my colleague from the Register editorial page, and his wife Jan Norman, the Register's small-business columnist, came all the way out to Temecula to hear the concert. They seemd to enjoy it, and Jen had a chance to meet them (Jan has been very helpful to her on several occasions when she's had entrepreneurial questions).

Anyway, feeling good.