W How was that again with soprano, alto and tenor? In the email we received, we were supposed to assign ourselves to one of six voices. I choose the second soprano and hope that I am roughly right.
I am on my way to a One-Day Choir organized by brynja, the “fitness studio for the psyche.” The last time I sang in front of people was in seventh grade at a school performance of “Cats.” Now I only sing in front of my child, and even that regularly tells me to stop. Singing loudly feels intense to me.
The good thing about the choir is actually that you can orient yourself by others. You can perfectly blend into the crowd, secretly. And that is also my plan for today.
The principle of the One-Day Choir comes from New York. The idea behind it: people who don’t know each other come together for a few hours and sing a song they have not practiced beforehand. Some videos from these choirs went viral: very different people walk through a basement and sing “Creep” in perfect harmony.
We are not meeting in a basement, but far in the east of Bremen: in the event room of the Bremer Krankenhausmuseum Kulturambulanz. I actually don’t know any of the 50 people, which is unusual in a village like Bremen. We sing “Take Me to Church” by the Irish songwriter Hozier. Lene, the choir director, keeps emphasizing that it doesn’t matter if we sound perfect. The important thing is that we feel it—and I feel: stressed. I know I don’t sing well. Also, I notice that I probably forgot how to read music.
I realize that I have never heard my closest friends sing either. When did we stop doing that? I think of my child, who in a crowded supermarket gives an unsolicited concert by the “Owl with the Bump,” including choreography. My child doesn’t care whether it’s off-key or the wrong lyrics. It doesn’t think about it at all. It sings because it simply enjoys it. Because it feels like it. When did singing become something you are ashamed of?
I stare at the sheet music and suspect that it has something to do with our performance-driven society and the fear of imperfection—singing is only allowed if you master it perfectly and thereby earn money—but I don’t have time to develop this thesis. It starts immediately: “We start on the 16th measure,” says Lene. I feel stressed again. How do I locate the 16th measure?
This text comes from the wochen. Our weekly left-wing newspaper! In the wochen, every week it’s about the world as it is – and how it could be. A left-wing weekly newspaper with a voice, a stance and the special view on the world. Every Saturday anew at the kiosk and of course by subscription.
We are really supposed to sing now. Jan accompanies us on a piano. We repeatedly practice individual sections. After two hours, a drum set is added. I notice that I am getting louder and accidentally sway with the people around me in time. I have never noticed how beautiful “Take Me to Church” is. And then, after almost three hours, the reward: we sing the entire song several times in a row, with piano and drums. I haven’t thought for a long time that I actually can’t sing. It doesn’t matter, together we sound fantastic.
“It was really nice to sing beside you,” says someone whose name I don’t know. But I know something much more intimate about them: I know how they sing. “Do you need a ride?” Not me, I came by bicycle. On the way, I listen to the recording from earlier and then the original again. We sound a lot cooler, I think.
It’s late and I ride through an abandoned industrial area. For a long time I hadn’t felt afraid on the way home, but now I realize I don’t feel safe. I drive faster. What does my child do again when we have to go through the dark basement? I dare the forbidden: I sing loudly and off-key. “I’ll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife!” And I feel: free.
