Text 1: Finding my note, by Ellie Morgan

An original contemporary blog.

I signed up for the Thursday choir because my neighbour said they needed more altos. I had not sung in public since a school concert where I came in two bars early and never quite recovered.

The first rehearsal was in a draughty hall with a piano that seemed to have one opinion about every note. Everyone else appeared to know where to stand and when to open the blue folder. I spent ten minutes pretending to read the noticeboard while trying to work out which pile of music was mine.

When we began, I discovered that knowing a tune and singing it with forty other people are not the same skill. I entered confidently, then realised the rest of the room was still counting. Our conductor stopped us and smiled, which was kind, although I would have preferred the floor to open.

By the third week, I could follow the warm-up without copying the person beside me. At the spring concert I was still nervous, but when the final chord settled into the hall, the sound seemed to belong to all of us. I walked home humming, which is how my family knew I had enjoyed it.

Text 2: A letter from a new singer, by Margaret Ellis

An original letter in a nineteenth-century voice; a period simulation, not an archival document.

In this letter, written in 1887, a shop assistant writes to her sister after joining a local choir.

My dear Annie,

You will laugh to hear that I have joined the singing society, though I must ask you not to picture me as one of those confident ladies who can begin a song without first looking to see whether anybody is listening. I went because Mrs Pritchard said they lacked a second soprano, and because I have lately spent too many evenings at home with nothing but the clock for company.

At our first meeting, the music-master placed me beside a girl who sang so loudly that I could scarcely hear my own voice. I followed her for half a verse before discovering that she had turned the page and I had not. The gentleman at the piano waited patiently while we began again. I wished the benches had been made with holes in them.

Yet the next Thursday I returned. There is comfort in hearing a part strengthen when each singer finds it. I still lose my place if I watch the conductor too closely, but I have learned to keep my finger on the line.

Last night we sang before the society’s guests. My voice trembled at the beginning; by the last verse it had steadied. I cannot say that I sang beautifully, but I was glad not to be silent. Your affectionate sister, Margaret.

Both texts are about joining a choir.

Compare:

• the writers’ experiences of joining and singing with a choir
• how the writers make these experiences clear to readers

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