I sing solo

The spring semester of school is filled with all sorts of festivals, some of which we get out of school for, like I did in my last post. The regional Solo and Ensemble Festival, however, always took place on a Saturday. The festival gave those of us in choir a chance to show off our stuff to other people from other schools in our part of the state. We could each do a solo and participate in a couple of ensembles. Individual adjudicators would give us either a 1, 2 or 3. A 1 was the best rating and you got a medal. A 2 got you a certificate. I don't know what you got with a 3.

I had been able to paricipate in solo and ensemble festivals since I was in the seventh grade. That first year, the festival included the entire choir and the music teacher encouraged us to sing solos. I decided I didn't want to that year. I regretted that decision later.

In the eighth grade, I prepared a solo and my teacher predicted that I would get a 1. I sort of had a rival in choir that year. (He turned out to be one of the people who saw me get caught shoplifting.) This guy couldn't really sing. He did a solo. He was scheduled before me with a different adjudicator. While I was waiting to perform, he came up and told me excitedly that he had gotten a 1. I was surprised, but thought it added credence to the possibility that I would get a 1 as well.

I got up and performed my piece. I thought I did very well. A few minutes later, I found out I got a 2. WHAT? GET OUT OF HERE! How did the other guy get a 1 for a sloppy performance while I got a 2? It was later discovered that my adjudicator only gave out three 1's to students that day, out of at least 50 performances. One of those was a guy from our group who actually went on right before me. The other adjudicator was just handing out 1s left and right like free candy at a school yard.

The worst part about this was that the rival kept throwing that in my face, saying he was better than me. I was glad when he didn't return to the choir in high school.

I was so devastated by not getting the 1 that to this day, I still remember the name of the judge. I was tempted to actually publish her full name in this post, but after seeing that there's at least 40 other people out there with that same name, I decided against it. Besides, she's probably dead now.

At the very least, I thought I could redeem myself during the Solo and Ensemble Festival in ninth grade. However, I didn't get that chance. Despite rehearsing a solo, the festival was scheduled on one of the weekends of our school's spring break. School rules prevented students from being taken out of town while school was on break. I felt cheated again.

In the tenth grade, I was finally going to get to take part in the Solo and Ensemble Festival again. I was all pumped from my All-State experience. When I got up to do my piece, there were a lot of other students from other schools in the room. I could see them listening intently to my performance. It actually made me kind of nervous, but I got through the song and there was a lot of applause. One of the girls in the audience came up to me and told me I did really well. I would run into that girl again very soon. Stay tuned, she'll appear in future posts.

I had to sit and wait for the results to come in. When the sheet was posted, I saw that I got a 1. FINALLY! As it turned out, I was the only sophomore who got a 1. Yes, even Tad, the girl who was Ms. F's teacher's pet from the ninth grade, got a 2. I felt completely vindicated. (But do note that I didn't rub my 1 in her face. We also had different adjudicators.)

I also got 1s during the Solo and Ensemble Festivals for my junior and senior years. This made me the only senior who had gotten 1s all three years. Tad didn't get her first 1 until senior year. As nothing eventful took place the next two years, I don't need to go into detail about them later. However, I should mention that in my senior year, our teacher somehow arranged for all of us to be seen by the same judge. This meant that no one from any other schools saw me perform. There was no one new to impress. That was disappointing.

At the very least, getting the 1s made me feel like all the effort I had been putting into choir for the last few years was not a complete waste of time.