It’s been almost three years since I’ve stopped singing and to be perfectly honest, I don’t miss it too much, barring those moments when I hear great choral or acappella pieces and think, damn, I wish I could sing that.
Recently, these moments have been triggered by Glee, the funny TV series that has been ruling my iPhone, together with Gossip Girl and Grey’s Anatomy. And I just realized that these shows begin with the letter ‘G’. But that is not the point.
The point is, Glee is so wonderfully warm and funny. Set in a fictitious high school in a small American town, it follows the trials and tribulations of a singing group and its enthusiastic teacher-in-charge. The song and dance routines are very Broadway and immensely infectious. It reminds me of the time when we were singing fun ’60s songs back in SCGS choir days. We loved what we were singing and we had lots of fun doing campy choreography and cheesy moves. That was before the days of singing strange avant garde songs that did nothing to warm my heart. Who doesn’t love a pop song or musical?
And the characters’ need to fit in and to do something special in their lives hit the right spot. I mean, before I joined VJC Choir and Victoria Chorale, I was merely mediocre. I was good, perhaps above average, in most things that I did (except for Maths and Physics – I sucked at those!) but I was never the best. I was a good writer but not great. I did well at English Literature but would never have gone further than A’Levels with it. It wasn’t until I joined the choir and started winning competitions and awards that I felt I was truly good at something. Singing was probably one of the only things in my life that I put my heart and soul into.
I leave you now with a song that has been ringing in my head. Heck, I even bought the track off iTunes store. Coincidentally, we were at Courts Tampines shopping around a couple of weeks back when I heard this song, sung by Journey, and was humming it the entire day. Tonight, when I get home, I am going to dig out all the Swingle Singers and Rockapella tunes from my external hard disk.
(Much thanks go to Lucian for sharing this with me!)
Yannisms 