Singing Lessons

UPDATE: The Choral Arts Society of Washington has posted a wonderful, heartwarming video of some of Norman Scribner’s finest moments, illustrating all the things I’ve tried to say below. Enjoy!

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I’m a choral singer.

I’m passably good at it — not the best, but I hold my own. For me, it’s recreation; stress removal; joy. For many years I sang with a storied New York-based chorus that presented its concerts in Carnegie Hall, and I swore I would never leave the New York area because I thought there was no other experience in the world like singing a great concert to a sold-out house in Carnegie Hall.

Turns out I was wrong.

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On Registrations and Paywalls

This morning I followed a link from a tweet to an op-ed piece on a newspaper’s website, and was greeted with a demand to register or log in. It’s a newspaper in a state in which I don’t live, and whose site I don’t have a regular reason to visit. (I’m not going to out them, since this was far from a unique experience.) My interpretation of its demand? “You’re not welcome here yet.”

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