To sing, or not to sing...

I've had an internal debate (since before I arrived in Germany) about whether or not to get involved with singing during my studies in Europe. Whenever I'm not singing, I miss it a lot... but I can also tend to get too focused music, to the detriment of other priorities. I had preliminarily planned to participate in a university-sponsored choir, so I could do a little singing each week but without much pressure to spend lots of time on music outside of rehearsals.

There are two choirs sponsored by the university's music department in Oldenburg. One is a classical choir called "Uni-Chor"; and the is called "JazzChor". I attended one rehearsal for each of these groups last week and... it was pretty disappointing. For one thing, it hadn't occurred to me how difficult it would be to get excited about singing not-so-challenging music. But secondly, both groups are singing primarily American show tunes -- "West Side Story" medley, "Let the Sunshine In" (Hair), "Memory" and "Jellicle Cats" (Cats)... And I feel -- how should I say it diplomatically? -- overexposed... to most of this music. Perhaps to Germans, this music is fresh and new... and of course, for them it's "foreign language" music. But for me: BLYECH!

So I did some websurfing and networking over the weekend... I corresponded with a guy from a local group called QuintEssence, and he directed me to another local group -- Jaco de Musio. Last night, I became the tenor for this 5-person (SATBB) jazz vocal group. The group has two arrangers -- the alto and bari (which is nice, since I've promised myself that I won't get involved with arranging during my studies!). They realize that I'm only here in Oldenburg for four months, but they want me to fill in for their tenor (who recently moved away) during the Christmas season. There are several small (2-3 song) performances in the coming weeks, and we're hoping to put on a 30-minute Christmas concert at the local St. Lamberti church in mid-December. In addition to arrangements by two of the members, we are singing several Real Group ditties and one by Take 6 (revoiced slightly for mixed voices). It's fun to be singing again, and it's nice to feel needed (and useful) -- they desperately wanted to continue singing during the holiday season, but when their tenor left them high-n-dry a couple of months ago, they thought it would be impossible. Although the group members all speak English very well -- and talk to me exclusively in English (except when they forget) -- they frequently talk to each other in German during the rehearsal, which will hopefully continue to train/improve my ears for German vocab and grammar (by osmosis, so to speak).