“Paul? Maybe you’d like to sing the baritone part instead of the tenor. Would you try it?”
The director of the combined university chorus/community choir didn’t have to ask twice. Well, except perhaps because I thought I might have heard him wrong. I hadn’t.
So I’m singing baritone. And, a little bass.
And, it feels like I’ve come home.
Do you ever feel like you don’t fit in?
You know—everyone else in the car wants to listen to music from the latest boy group, but you heard that Yo-Yo Ma recorded a duet with Alison Krauss and you’d like to listen to that. Or, you’re walking with a group of people on the fitness trail and you realize that they’re all synchronized on the left foot and you’re on your right foot. Or, the family members all want to go for tacos, but you want chicken.
I’ve felt like that all my life. If you really know me, you know I was the strange kid, always zigging when everyone else zagged. I’ve freely admitted in these little pieces I write that I’ve never felt completely at home, no matter where I’ve been.
My father-in-law used a descriptive phrase, many years ago, that I’ve always thought fit me to a T. He was a piano tuner and would often be asked to work on instruments that had been neglected for many years. When a piano is left to its own devices for too long, the strings tend to stretch, making the overall pitch drop. The result is an instrument that may be in tune with itself, but sounds horrid when played with another instrument at standard pitch.
He would say to me, “This one is playing in the cracks.”
I understood exactly what he meant. The piano didn’t play well with others (I think that phrase might have described me at many points in my childhood as well—and perhaps after).
I always had the image in my head, as he said those words, that the sounds the instrument made were what might have come from down between the ebony and ivory keys, instead of dead center on top of them.
I suspect I may have been playing in the cracks for most of my life. And for some reason, I’ve always thought I needed to be fixed—to be tuned up to standard pitch.
I’m beginning to think differently.
I’ve indeed spent most of my life singing tenor. But, I’m a baritone.
If you know vocal categories, you realize that often the baritone is left out in choral music. Music is written in SATB form (soprano, alto, tenor, bass), so there’s no place for the baritone to fit in easily. Many notes in the tenor part are comfortable and sound great when sung by a baritone, but when those soaring notes fly up above Middle C, the baritone voice begins to lose its luster. The same thing happens in the bass parts, except it’s in the lower range of that voicing that the baritone singer gets lost in the mix.
I still remember my pastor’s wife sitting in front of me in the choir during my high school years. Back then, the choir needed a bass voice, so I covered that part for them.
Mrs. Slaughter was always kind, always sweet. She’d hear me sing a bass line (that should have been full and deep, but for me, the notes were just barely audible) and she’d say, loud enough for the entire choir to hear, “Oh! Listen to that basso profundo!”
I don’t think anyone else in the choir was rude enough to laugh, but I did. Every time. I knew better.
I’m no bass singer. Nor am I a tenor.
I sing in the cracks between the two.
And, it’s finally okay.
Dr. Cho says it’s okay.
Can I make a suggestion? If you don’t fit the mold they’re pushing you into, stop trying. Be who you are. More than that—be who God made you to be.
The world will try to make you fit their standard. You don’t belong there. And, if you’re really following Christ, you’ll never fit in—never feel comfortable—singing in that key.
“This world is not my home, I’m just a-passing through…”
Living in the cracks.
Until we finally reach home.
There, we’ll be singing in His key. With His voicing.
He—the Master Conductor—says it’s okay.
You know the music will be spectacular.
I hope you’ll sing with me. I’ll be the one singing baritone.
“I’m not asking you to take them out of the world, but to keep them safe from the evil one. They do not belong to this world any more than I do. Make them holy by your truth; teach them your word, which is truth. Just as you sent me into the world, I am sending them into the world.”
(John 17:15-18, NLT)
“Harpists spend ninety percent of their lives tuning their harps, and ten percent playing out of tune.” (Igor Stravinsky)
© Paul Phillips. He’s Taken Leave. 2024. All Rights Reserved.
