I am a member of a team, and I rely on the team, I defer to it and sacrifice for it, because the team, not the individual, is the ultimate champion.
~Mia Hamm, US Women’s Soccer Collegiate, National and World Cup Champion, Olympic Gold & Silver Medalist

There were a lot of things I didn’t put in the About Me section of this blog because this project really isn’t “About Me” – it’s “About Kindness”. Who I am and where I’m from are irrelevant factors in my effort to increase kindness awareness. And I knew that along the way, I would probably be telling you little bits about myself to explain some of my actions. So as this project progresses, I will be giving you pieces of my personal background as they relate to my current evolution.

I sing with a women’s barbershop chorus, Capital City Chorus, and have off and on for the better part of 18 years. Capital City Chorus is a part of Sweet Adelines International – the parent organization of womens’ barbershop. I grew up in barbershop – my dad started singing barbershop in high school and I was raised on it. So that makes me a second-generation barbershopper, otherwise known as a “Barbershop Brat.” OK, enough background for now – I’m sure I will be telling you more about my wonderful hobby in future posts. Here’s the point for today.

Capital City Chorus, Calgary, 2007

I have taken a few breaks from the chorus in the past 18 years when the rest of my life demanded my attention.  I have not been actively singing with Capital City since January 2008 and recently decided (after some encouragement from my closest Sweet Adeline friends) to rejoin the chorus and prepare for International Competition in Seattle,WA in October. These women have been preparing for this competition for over a year – learning music, learning choreography, perfecting music, perfecting choreography, paying coaches to come in and tell them how to perfect their music and choreography, etc. They practice each Thursday evening for 3 hours and occasionally have extra practices on Saturdays to accommodate a coaches’ schedule. I am jumping in toward the end of their journey, so I have a lot of catching up to do to get up to the level they have worked so hard to achieve.

So yesterday, I spent some time working on my music and new choreography in preparation for this week’s rehearsal. I studied my sheet music and made some markings that help me make better sense of the notes and their progression (I sing baritone and it sometimes doesn’t make melodic sense when I’m trying to learn it.). I combined the sheet music with the learning tracks so that I could listen to how my part goes, which helps me learn it faster. And then I spent some time trying to recall and review the choreography I learned last week so it would be fresh in my mind and easier to reproduce at rehearsal.

I owe it to these women to be prepared to do my best each week. It may not be a “sport” (however, there are times that many Sweet Adelines would dispute this claim), but it’s still a team effort and a team is only as good as its weakest member. Coming in this late in the game, the weakest member could very easily be me. Some people will read this and think “As a chorus member, it is YOUR responsibility to make sure you get your ‘game’ up to the level of the rest of the team as quickly as possible. ‘I’m new’ is no excuse.” I wholeheartedly agree with this AND add that it is also a matter of having enough respect for my fellow chorus members to make sure I am not ‘the weakest link.’ The chorus management team is very good about giving members as many tools as possible to aid the learning process, but nobody can learn the music or the moves for me – I have to do it for myself. And I don’t want to hold back the forward momentum of refining and perfecting our repertoire because I didn’t take the time outside of rehearsal to practice and get myself up to speed. I shouldn’t expect anyone to have to wait on me to catch up. I respect my chorus sisters too much to slack off and just ease my way back into the material. Yes, I did benefit from this preparation – and so did my CCC sisters (I hope).