It was supposed to be a Good Friday filled with back-to-back episodes of Glee and celebrating a birthday. Yet, the innate musicality that runs in my family caused us to abandon our original party plans all because we unanimously agreed to learn the Glee version of a Bill Withers’ classic after some gentle prodding from one of the cousins. Brennan was convinced that we would one day perform either for a family gathering, or for a church function. And seeing as we’re a family with absolutely no qualms about singing in public, we immediately gathered in my room and embarked on Project: Lean On Me.
We (or, rather, Brayton) tried to figure out the harmonies first based on a preview page of the sample sheet music we got off the Internet, but after seeing how devoted we were to getting our melodies perfect, we promptly purchased/downloaded the rest of the sheet music, and gleefully – ha! see what I did there? – got down to learning our parts. It was an extremely serious session, with all of us displaying plenty of dedication as we eagerly took instructions from our 17-year-old conductor extraordinaire. Unfortunately, the song was a LOT more difficult than we thought, so we only managed to learn up until the end of the first chorus. All within 3 hours. LOL. You see, only 2 of the cousins can sight read. So um, yeah. :p
What I loved most about the whole experience was the exciting revelation that God may have a bigger purpose for us to fulfill. Not only has He blessed us in such a way that He has given us similar gifts, He’s even gone so far as to give each of us different vocal ranges so we could perfectly fill up the various SATB roles (Soprano: Rachel, Alto: Me, Tenor: Brennan, Bass: Bjorn & Ian, Soloist 1: Beth, Soloist 2 & Conductor: Brayton). Naturally, His blessings brought about indescribable feelings of pure bliss as we sang together as a family.
The 7 of us don’t get to come together very often, so I’m not sure when exactly we’ll finish learning the song. But I’m confident that the end product will be pretty decent, and dare I say, good, even. But yes, we’ll try to do a recording so you can judge. ;) For now, I’m just deeply thankful that we all have this amazing connection with each other, that can simply be attributed to our love for God and music. :)
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Wow I hadn’t even thought of that bigger purpose. I was just happy singing together with every one. I think Labour Day’s already booked for our next practice, yes? :P Well at least we made it this far!
Haha, yes! Labour Day is a must! Violet Hill reckons if we practice once every fortnight, we’d be able to get it in about… 3 months? ;)
Just tried out some of it on piano … my part at least. I think I’d do better listening to the song. I’ll probably use this project to de-stress!
Ah yes, music. The great de-stresser of all things um, stressful. It soothes the soul, I tell ya! I’m gonna look forward to our “project” to de-stress as well. :)