It was a little strange being a ten-year-old girl with an E below middle C. The only other person in my junior high choir with that note was an eighth grader, and somehow we ended up dropping below the boys for a treble rendition of Mozart's "Laudate Dominum." My mother, a definite soprano, was concerned. As I got older and became more of a fixture of the Ensemble's alto section (I distinctly remember us being addressed one day as "Lauren Simpson and the Doo-Wop Choir), I never had much of a chance to move up. We had boy sopranos who could hit the high F's and G's, so there was no need for a girl who, quite honestly, squeaked at best in her upper register to jump into the soprano section.
I'm not going to say it didn't annoy me. I wanted to sing soprano more than just about anything; I wanted to be able to perform the soaring decant lines and actually have the melody for once. My choirmaster knew better, thankfully, and instead I began to cultivate the sight-reading skills that have thus far served me much better than a silly descant line. That doesn't mean I don't sing them now, given the chance, and yes, there are far better soprano voices than mine, but since I've spent the better part of my amateur choral career on first or second alto, I can at least read the lines most of the time.
Of course, being an alto in a junior high/high school/college choir means that you don't just sing alto. If the second sopranos are weak, you move up. If the tenors can't hit the notes on helium, you move down. Sometimes, if the part's high enough, you get a rare moment on second tenor or baritone, but never first soprano. (The firsts never need alto assistance. It's the nature of the beast.) For the most part, however, you get the same basic lines that hover around the middle of the keyboard, and if you're doing Meredith Monk, you may hold one note for fifty measures. (Then again, the guys have it even worse.)
Cut to this morning: for various reasons, the choir was down to Norma on soprano, me on alto, and Bert on men. Given that I sight-read almost everything we do at Kirk o' Field, Roy was considerate enough to pull me aside and run an unfamiliar hymn before the service started. It was a distinctive little piece (and of the two tunes given with the words in the hymnal, neither corresponded to what the Baptists use), and the end chorus splits into male with female echo. I ran the alto line, which was largely three notes, and then Roy lamented that we don't have a strong male section. I offered to jump down. He looked at me rather strangely, but I do, in fact, still have a decent E below when I haven't been in the stratosphere for hours.
"You're the first person I've ever met who can sing soprano, alto, and tenor," he said after we ran it, and told me to make the jump. Fortunately, he wasn't expecting a bass line out of me.
That hymn was last in the program, and directly before it came one that we had practiced exactly once. I recognized the alto line, but Norma looked at me as we were prepping and whispered, "I don't know this one at all." When we stood to face Roy, he mouthed, "Sing soprano," so I did. Loudly. (Yeah, I know. Some things never change.)
Half an hour following that, it was definitely fun to drop two octaves, especially when the only strong male voice I could hear was the minister's.
So thanks, Mr. Phillips, for "Laudate Dominum." It's fun to surprise people.
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