Bella Senora and other vocal warmups

In order to appease the Evil Nun at the church Gzilla and I are getting married at... and to hopefully make this whole "getting married in the Catholic church" thing as easy as humanly possible, I agreed to cantor at Mass. For you non church goers (which to be fair, was be up until two months ago--ha!) that means I stand in front of the church at the little pulpit and lead all the songs. All of them.

This past Sunday was my first time singing in front of people in over five years. Needless to say, I was slightly terrified. Especially because I did everything to prepare. I got my music ahead of time... didn't know ANY of the songs... taught them to myself via virtualpiano.net and learned that I actually DID know three of the songs, just with different lyrics. I met with the organist a week ago to rehearse, and I borrowed a digital recorder from the radio station (that my boss said he would never forgive me if I lost or broke it, so I guarded the damn thing with my life). We didn't check the battery beforehand... and because the battery was so low, it didn't record ANYTHING. So the processional/entrance hymn that I didn't know, I couldn't rehearse. The mass parts that I wasn't terribly familiar with, I couldn't rehearse. I did all my homework! This was supposed to work!

Plus, when I went to rehearse, I warmed up my voice and everything was fine. Right as I go into church...I get some weird allergy attack and I totally lose any note that's above a C. Now I'm worried that I'm going to suck, get thrown out as a cantor, and get on the Evil Nun's bad side again. But yesterday, I woke up 2 hours before Mass. Drank more water than was probably necessary, and warmed up my voice a whole heck of a lot. And I didn't suck.

I might not be acting anymore... but at least I can still keep up with my singing at Mass. They have a choir, but they rehearse on Monday nights (I have knitting group!) and they perform on Sundays (I have work!) so I'm not joining that choir. I'm hoping that by cantoring at Mass, some of the other newly engaged couples will ask me to cantor their wedding. That'd be awesome.