With the holidays fast approaching — and with them the inevitable Messiah sing-a-longs — I figured it was finally time to share something more broadly useful: a set of Messiah rehearsal tracks.

They are now available for free usage in two categories:

• Choral parts only
• Complete, with all recitatives and arias

All part numbers, measure numbers, and page numbers are based on the Bärenreiter Urtext edition of Messiah, but I expect that they should line up pretty well with most other editions.

There are a couple of specific edits in the versions presented here, as compared to the version in the full Bärenreiter edition:

1. For “How beautiful are the feet of Him/Their sound is gone out,” the version presented here is the second version (34a/35a) instead of the longer versions (34/35) that appear earlier in the edition.
2. For “O death where is thy sting?” (44) the cut from measure 5 to measure 23 is removed.

Feel free to give them a try! And if you find any errors, be sure to click the “Report an Error” button to file a report, and I’ll be sure to get it fixed as soon as I can.

I recall when I first started singing a certain disappointment that the singing generally stopped in May or June, and didn’t resume until the fall.

Eventually I discovered that I could cover the time with continued voice lessons, or participation in some of the Seattle area’s excellent sing-alongs during the summer.

A couple of summers ago, I decided to step things up and participate in the Midsummer Music Retreat held at Whitman College in Walla Walla, WA. For one week of intense participation, this was great, but the summer still felt kind of empty outside of that experience.

Last summer I tried something new in addition to the retreat: a barbershop quartet, practicing most week in the basement of our local church. Great learning opportunity, but without a final concert or other end result, it felt incomplete.

This summer, I feel like I finally nailed it.

In June I got the chance to participate in the “Star Spangled Spectacular” with the Seattle Wind Symphony. Two rehearsals with a performance on June 29 at Benaroya Hall, this was a fun little project singing classic music from the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” to “Take Me Out To the Ball Game” to the “1812 Overture.”

In July, I had the opportunity to take a class on Gregorian Chant and Renaissance Polyphony from Michael Alan Anderson at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. We spent a week learning about history, notation, musica ficta, and other great topics, then performed a Vespers service and concert on July 26.

In August (and in all the summer spare time prior) my new group the Summer Fling Vocal Ensemble kicked off its compressed rehearsal schedule, going from zero to concert in three weeks. We rehearsed a collection of early American music in the context of the American Revolution, and had our inaugural concert on August 27.

So, one concert per month throughout the summer. Some great opportunities in both large choral settings and more intimate ensembles. A really unique experience putting together my own concert and ensemble.

Feels like going back to regular church and community choir participation will be akin to “taking a break” — and hopefully I’ll be recharged for next summer!

We are a mixed chamber group of community chorus singers skipping out for a month during the summer to explore new genres and experience small ensemble singing.

The initial idea for the project came about because I have always wanted to participate in a smaller vocal ensemble, with just a few (2–3) voices on each part.

In the Seattle area we have an awesome set of community choirs, but most of them are larger than what I was seeking, and the smaller ones were mostly either professional groups or women-only groups.

It was clear then that if I wanted the chance to experience and learn in this area, I was going to have to put something together on my own.

Last summer (2015), I decided to take my first plunge by assembling a barbershop quartet. I reached out to friends, and friends of friends, and eventually found 3 other people to try it with me.

In the end, I felt the experience was really worthwhile. I learned a lot, sang in a new (for me) genre, and I really loved our time singing together. Yet I found myself with a few regrets afterward:

1. I had no prior barbershop experience, so I had to rely heavily on another member to do most of the driving in what was ostensibly my pet project.
2. It was just the 4 of us with no outside coach or listener to provide feedback.
3. Our work never culminated in any performances, so the end of the project kind of fell flat.

This year (2016), I decided to try again with the express goal of solving the problems:

1. I would create a more traditional classical ensemble, where I could at least leverage my own experience.
2. I would hire a coach/conductor to guide some of the rehearsals and provide feedback.
3. I would be sure to end with a concert.

Since I had been recently delving into early American hymnody, and had come across a few interesting anthems along the way, I decided pretty quickly that I would use that as the core repertoire for the group.

The next step was finding people. My aim for this group was to find 3 people per part (a total of 12). I really didn’t want to go through auditions, especially since I feel like auditions are not good indicators of how dedicated and hard working people are. So I decided instead to tap my network of friends, and sure enough they came through.

It was at that point things began coming together. I whittled down the repertoire to a reasonable, focused program; transcribed all the music from original sources (because I’m like that); arranged mutually amenable rehearsal and concert times; found a coach; located a suitable venue; put together a website and Facebook page; and did the kinds of things I was used to doing as General Manager of the Sacred Music Chorale.

However, I didn’t feel like it was really happening until our first get together, which happened last night on July 11. Everyone showed up! We ran through a bunch of the music, I faked my way through directing, and good sounds were made.

And now I’m encouraged and very excited to see how this adventure turns out!

I first heard the tune in this wonderful rendition by His Majestie’s Clerkes:

You might notice the recording is titled “The Day is Past and Gone,” and not “Evening Hymn.” As with many hymn tunes, the tune is independent of the text, and you will find a lot of mixing and matching going on. Here, the recording is named after the text they chose to set it to.

Unfortunately, looking online for a score for “The Day is Past and Gone” by Elisha West turned up nothing (I didn’t know at the time that the tune was called “Evening Hymn”).

Even the trusty Choral Public Domain Library (CPDL) came up blank. Or so I thought. They did have a page for Elisha West, and just one score online for a tune called “Our Moments Fly Apace.” Curious, I took a gander and quickly realized that this was in fact the tune I was interested in, just with unexpected text.

The CPDL page for this tune indicated that it first appeared in West’s songbook The Musical Concert, released in 1802. Having just recently discovered that scans of many early American songbooks are available online, I did a search and found a version in the Petrucci Music Library (IMSLP).

And behold, the original (click to embiggen):

The first thing I noticed is that the original contains but a single verse, whereas the version I found on CPDL had three verses. The text seen above is taken from Isaac Watts‘ metrical setting of Psalm 90, verse three:

Our moments fly apace,
Nor will our minutes stay;
Just like a flood, our hasty days
Are sweeping us away.

The CPDL edition extends the original text by adding verses 4 and 5 as well:

Well, if our days must fly,
We’ll keep their end in sight,
We’ll spend them all in wisdom’s way,
And let them speed their flight.

They’ll waft us sooner o’er
This life’s tempestuous sea;
Soon we shall reach the peaceful shore
Of blest eternity.

So then I got curious about the origins of the text in the recorded version I had found online. A bit more digging on CPDL revealed a “Request” Page where someone had asked for “Evening Hymn.” They were, of course, pointed to the existing “Our Moments Fly Apace” setting, but with an interesting note attached:

the John Leland text ‘The day is past and gone’ was not published with the tune until its use in Jeremiah Ingalls‘ The Christian Harmony (1805).

Aha! Sure enough, even The Christian Harmony is available on IMSLP. But when I looked up “Evening Hymn” this is what I found:

Hmmm, well, the text matches … somewhat. Verse 3 shown above is missing in the recording, and there are two more verses that aren’t present at all. But if you look closely, it’s not even the same tune! Oh well, so much for that lead.

However, there was at least a reference to the poet: John Leland, a Baptist minister who lived from 1751–1841. A little searching revealed the original text of the poem, which goes like this:

The day is past and gone,
The evening shades appear,
O may I ever keep in mind,
The night of death is near.

I lay my garments by,
Upon my bed to rest;
So death will soon remove me hence,
And leave my soul undrest.

Lord keep me safe this night,
Secure from all my fears;
May angels guard me while I sleep,
Till morning light appears.

And when I early rise,
To view the unwearied sun,
May I set out to win the prize,
And after glory run.

That when my days are past,
And I from time remove,
Lord I may in thy bosom rest,
The bosom of thy love.

The text in the recorded version is a pretty close match to this, with just a few exceptions:

1. The biggest change is that the text is altered from singular to plural (I to we, my to our, etc.)
2. The end of the first verse has a slight change to “O may we all remember well / The night of death draws near.”
3. The end of the second verse is also changed, to “So death will soon disrobe us all / Of what we here possess.”
4. Verse 3 is skipped altogether
5. A few minor word substitutions in the last two verses.

Altering the text in this manner seems to be extremely common. Further research on one of my favorite sites, hymnary.org, reveals that it is both commonly used and commonly altered, with an awesome page that lets you examine all the differences between versions.

So, the dilemma: I’m programming this piece and need to pick which text to use. So many options!

I could just stick with what’s in the source and do verse 3 of Isaac Watts’ original text, but I like the hymn so much that doing just one verse would be kind of a bummer

I could stick with the Watts text and include verses 4 and 5 as well, like the CPDL setting does, but that feels a bit presumptuous.

I could follow the recording’s lead and do 4 verses of the John Leland’s text. But it’s weird they dropped the middle verse, and the proper Episcopalian in me hates skipping verses.

I could do all 5 verses of the Leland text, but 5 verses might be a bit too much of a good thing in spite of my previous statement.

Tough call, but I’m leaning toward the second option (Watts text, verses 3–5).

Update: Checking “Our Moments Fly Apace” on hymnary.org reveals an example published in 1848 (without music) called “Boyleston Hymn” that is just verses 3–5 of the Watts text, so there is precedent!

Not too much more to report since my last update, except that I am still working on getting comfortable again in my upper range. I’m starting to be able to revisit some of my old solo repertoire and sing it again without too much fear that I won’t be able to hit the high notes.

I finished out the Spring season with Sacred Music Chorale and ended up switch-hitting between tenor and bass, favoring the bass in most pieces, but opting for tenor when the bass part sat too low. (And at times confusing my neighbor!)

For the Spring season of Seattle Bach Choir I’ve gone back to being a full-time tenor. The repertoire sits pretty high in the tenor voice for this concert (especially for our May Cantata concert), so this has been good exercise for my upper range, with a focus on not pushing myself.

I also decided now was the time to go back to voice lessons, so I broke up with my piano teacher and began voice studies again. I’m happy to say that I’m already noticing some good things happening!

So I guess this has been a rebuilding year of sorts, but in the end I’m hoping this whole stressful experience will make me a better singer.

• Consider the Lilies by Marie E. Roll
• How Can I Keep from Singing? arranged by Bradley Ellingboe
• The Lord Is My Shepherd by Thomas Matthews
• O Be Joyful in the Lord by John Rutter
• Our Father, arranged by Benjamin Harlan
• Praise to the Lord, the Almighty arranged by Robert Sterling
• Shout for Joy! by Dan Davison

As with my previous arrangements, nothing too earth-shatteringly difficult or “out there.” And some, like the Our Father, are fairly minimal (just a bass line in that case).

But still there were a few interesting challenges. I was even so bold as to add a countermelody near the end of Consider the Lilies to make things a little more interesting.

I got to hear them live for the first time at dress rehearsal on Wednesday and they are sounding pretty good! Just a couple of minor typos found, and we decided to drop the string accompaniment at the very beginning of How Can I Keep from Singing? since it ended up being a bit much in practice.

Now that I’m past being concerned with how the arrangements turned out, I can focus on enjoying singing in the upcoming concerts!

Since my previous post, I followed up with my doctor and visited a vocal coach who is experienced in working with singers who have vocal damage. Prior to those visits I had started noticing a little less trouble getting above a D4 while singing, and was at times able to reach E4.

The visit with the doctor involved another exploration through my sinuses and confirmed yet again no visible issues, and no obvious treatment options.

Visiting the vocal coach didn’t offer too much in the way of guidance either, except the thought that some of my issue may be technical and not strictly medical. It had been a while since I’d had a proper voice lesson, however, so it’s also likely that I wasn’t “in practice” after not being closely observed for a while!

By the time the Seattle Bach Choir concert rolled around in the middle of March, I was starting to notice more fatigue when singing the lower bass parts (which I did for some of the pieces) and more ease when singing the tenor parts, or when the bass part jumped up high. I wasn’t struggling so much with the E4 and was even able to hit the occasional F4 as well.

But since I had been studying the bass parts for so long, I chose to remain (mostly) a bass for this concert, and resolved that I would try going back to tenor for the next concert.

Meanwhile at church I was still singing tenor as best as I could, but slowly finding it not so scary when the E’s and F’s started showing, and even managed an occasional light, floaty F# or G.

I’ve been noticing that I can find some falsetto again and using pure falsetto can sing a partial scale from C4 through A4. When I first started having trouble, I couldn’t even produce any kind of falsetto, so this definitely indicates to me that things are improving.

Still, this is pretty different from where I used to be, when I could manage a solid forte A4. But it’s progress enough that I’m starting to believe I can get back to being a full-time tenor again soon. I’ll try to follow up again in another few weeks!

And then one Thursday morning I woke up and found I could no longer sing much above a D4 (pretty much the sweet spot for a tenor). When I tried to sing anything higher, what came out was a strained D. If I was lucky.

It was the strangest feeling: my muscle memory knew exactly how to produce the tones and yet my body would not cooperate. Where I previously could vocalize a full octave higher, I would now top out in embarrassing fashion just getting to the heart of my normal tessitura.

On the plus side, there was no pain at all, just a complete inability to make my voice go any higher. What was going on?

The first question was obvious: had I overdone it? A couple of days previously on Tuesday I had had a double whammy of a voice lesson followed by an intense rehearsal blasting out forte high As in a Bruckner motet.

But that explanation didn’t really make sense. I had worked hard but felt pretty good at the end of it all. The day immediately following (Wednesday) I had mostly rested, but I did sing a little and hadn’t noticed anything wrong.

I tried not to panic at first, figuring things would just sort themselves out, but after a few days of no change, I decided to get an appointment with an ENT doctor to see if something more serious was going on.

The result? Nothing obviously wrong. They used a laryngoscope through the nose (don’t think about it too hard) to view my vocal cords and saw no evidence of nodules or other issues apart from some asymmetry in the vocal folds and some light inflammation due to GERD (which I am always fighting to some degree).

The asymmetry, they said, could be related or it could have always been there. Unfortunately, we didn’t have any previous examinations to compare against. Plus it seemed unlikely for something like that to spontaneously occur.

So I was prescribed vocal rest, a steroid taper, and a PPI. None of which made even the slightest bit of difference.

Meanwhile my first concerts with the Seattle Bach Choir were looming, and so I went on a crash course of learning the bass/baritone parts for most of the works we were performing. I may not have much volume below B2 or so but it beats squeaking out obvious clunkers up top!

At the same time, I scheduled appointments with two other local ENTs who were both voice specialists, in the hopes that they would be able to find something new. In both cases I was examined with a strobing laryngoscope while I sang (even got some cool videos), but neither found anything to really explain my issues.

One theory was offered: partial paralysis of the superior laryngeal nerve, which is one of the two nerves controlling the vocal cords, and more specifically the one that elongates the vocal folds to allow the production of “head voice” or falsetto.

That theory actually kind of jibed with what I was feeling. When I thought about it more carefully, it actually did appear that my problem was fundamentally an inability to produce head voice.

Unfortunately, to test whether it was truly due to a damaged nerve would require testing the muscles by sticking needles in my neck, which sounded unpleasant (and apparently carries a small degree of risk). And even if it were diagnosed as true, there’s really no treatment that can fix it, so I opted not to go that far.

The main argument against the paralyzed nerve theory is that it is usually caused by trauma to the neck (which I’m fairly certain I didn’t sustain). Sometimes it can also be caused by a virus, although there was no evidence that was I sick at the time. So while possible, the explanation still seems a bit iffy.

By the time I had visited both doctors, my November concerts were over and we were heading into the Christmas season, including concerts with the Sacred Music Chorale and all the fun Christmas music at St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church.

I was given the OK to sing as long as I didn’t push myself beyond my limits, so I once again opted to sing bass/baritone for pieces that were too high for me, and managed to get through the season without missing anything too major (apart from a duet with my wife which I was sad to cancel).

Cut to today (February) and it’s been over 3 months since the onset of my troubles, and still no improvement. When warmed up I am able to sometimes get up to E4 or F4, but it is clearly just the result of training my chest voice to get there and not due to any change in my fundamental problem.

The next step, after a follow-up with my voice specialists, is to visit a vocal coach who has experience with damaged voices, to see if there are things I can do to improve within my limits.

The long-term result will likely be one of two possibilities: either the problem will right itself after a few months (nerve-related issues can take months to years to heal), or I will have to adjust to the new realities and limitations of my voice.

In the meantime, I am still singing mostly bass/baritone (except at St. Margaret’s where we need tenors more desperately and I just do my best). On the bright side, my octave leaps are getting much better and I am building up more presence in my lower range.

When I first encountered this problem, I did a bunch of searching on the internet to see if I could find similar stories, but came up pretty empty. So even though I don’t have a solution yet, I felt it was important to share my experience in case others have something similar happen.

And if anything changes I’ll definitely follow up with an update! Thanks for reading.

Thus, I was excited to be given the opportunity to develop string arrangements for several pieces in the Sacred Music Chorale‘s Fall 2015 concert. Coordinating with our director, I eventually agreed to tackle 5 arrangements:

• Advent Canticle, arranged by Mark Sheppard
• Let Us Adore Him, arranged by Carolyn Hamlin
• God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen, arranged by Keith Christopher
• The Angel Gabriel, arranged by Joel Raney
• Tidings of Comfort, arranged by Carl J. Nygard

To be completely honest, none of the arrangements really required too much in the way of creativity: the strings generally doubled the existing piano or voice parts. But it was still a good education. I learned a lot about the ranges of the various instruments, how to assemble it all in Sibelius, how to notate for strings, how to deal with alto clef, etc.

The concerts were held on December 4, 5, and 6, and the middle one was recorded, so once I got the CDs, I was finally able to hear everything together.

Overall, the most complete arrangement was certainly Tidings of Comfort which we ended up performing without the piano entirely, leaving everything up to the strings and flute. Unfortunately the original arrangement is kind of chaotic so it wasn’t quite as pleasing in the concert recording as I would have liked.

I’d say the one that came out best overall was The Angel Gabriel, which has some nice moments of build-up and drama that the strings were really able to enhance. Both that one and God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen had a mix of pizzicato and arco, which was fun to play around with as well.

And I’m already signed up for doing some more for our Spring concert. Definitely a fun and rewarding thing to do, and good exercise for some of my music theory education.

The primary goal of this was to streamline the process of generating the Seattle Sings website, which lists upcoming concerts for all member organizations.

Of course, being far more ambitious than that, I pointed out that with the proper setup, we could do a whole lot more….

• allow searching for nearby concerts
• automatically produce a printable calendar in PDF form
• keep a list of concert and rehearsal venues
• generate active membership lists
• auto-create standardized pages for each member
• and my favorite: provide a choir finder tool

Fortunately for the coolness factor, yet unfortunately for my workload, people were receptive to my vision.

While some of the above is accessible only to GSCC members, the final results are publicly visible in several places:

1. The interactive online calendar at seattlesings.org showcases the coming 4 weeks’ worth of performances and allows you to navigate to see more. You can click on the “Search for concerts near you or for specific groups” to refine your search.
2. The printable Concert Listing, previously hand-curated, is now automatically generated from the data provided. This insert is made available at all GSCC member concerts and helps cross-promote choral concerts throughout the area.
3. The members page at greaterseattlechoralconsortium.org shows off the active member list. You can click on any member name to be taken to an auto-created standardized page for each active member.
4. The online Choir Finder tools lets you find groups that rehearse near you and filter on which day(s) they rehearse, where the rehearsals are, group size, type, and other factors.
5. Both the main Seattle Sings site and the sister Greater Seattle Choral Consortium site are now hosted on new servers, and are now using a theme that is properly responsive to browser size and mobile friendly.

One thing I’m particularly happy about (but which is not publicly visible) is that there is now a curated database of venues for concerts and rehearsals, complete with GPS coordinates. This allows for finding things nearby and will also I hope help choir directors identify new venues.

For the more technically inclined, the new system is built off of a MySQL+PHP backend, with client-side JavaScript code running the interactive portions.

The new sites are hosted using WordPress as a simple CMS, with a pair of custom plugins that access the database and output the live content.

The interface for GSCC members to manage their profiles and update events consists of a few native webpages written in PHP and JavaScript.