Performance night
Okay, so this is the lesson I've been building toward the whole time without saying so directly. Everything else, the warm-ups, the diction work, the dress run, the whole business with the metronome that's six beats fast, it was all pointed at this one night. You're going to stand up in front of people and sing, and then it's going to be over, and you're going to want to know what to do with that.
Let me just say the thing plainly first. You are ready. Not because I think pep talks fix nerves, they don't, we covered that a few lessons back. You're ready because you've done the reps. You know the piece in your ears, not just on the page. That's the whole point of learning it late instead of early. The paper was never going to save you tonight anyway.
The few hours before
Here's what I actually want you doing at home, the day of.
Eat something real before you leave. Not a big meal, you don't want to be singing on a full stomach, but don't show up running on a granola bar and adrenaline either. Something with protein, a couple hours out.
Hydrate earlier than you think you need to. Our air out here is dry enough that you can't fix it in the last twenty minutes with two big gulps of water backstage. Start the day before, honestly. Water at 4,600 feet with our humidity does not stay in you the way it would somewhere wetter, and your voice is the first thing that notices.
Do your warm-up, even a short one, even in the car. Five minutes of humming. I know it feels silly in a parking lot. Do it anyway. This isn't stalling, we've talked about this, your voice is a muscle and cold muscles don't perform.
Lay out your clothes and whatever you need the night before, not the morning of. You already know this if you've raised a teenager or been one, but it bears saying. The dress run should've caught wardrobe surprises. Don't invent a new one on performance night by digging through the closet at 6pm.
Once you're there
Get there early. You know how I feel about this, everyone in the carpool was twenty minutes early to that regional festival and I'm not sorry about it. Early means you're not rushing, and rushing is where nerves get their foothold.
Warm up as a section if you can, even quietly, even just a few of you humming together backstage. It reconnects you to the sound of the people next to you, which matters more tonight than any other night. Remember the whole blend thing I keep harping on, sing so you can hear your neighbor, not so you can hear yourself. On performance night, with adrenaline pushing everybody's volume up a notch without asking permission, that instinct to blend rather than project is going to save the whole choir from turning into forty people trying to win.
During the actual singing
If you go sharp, or flat, or you come in a beat early, let it go. I mean that. A wrong note sung with confidence is so much easier for the people around you, and for you, than a right note sung scared and thin. You will not remember the wrong note in a week. You will remember if you froze.
Watch me for the cutoffs. My downbeat's mushy, I've said that before and I'll say it again, so lean on your ears and the people around you as much as you lean on my arm waving at you. That's not me being falsely modest about it, it's just accurate, and I'd rather you know it and adjust than be surprised.
After
This is the part nobody tells you about. You come down off it and you want to talk about every note that went sideways. Don't, not that night. Let it be what it was. Todd from the ward once asked me a simple yes-or-no question about a hymn arrangement, just wanted to know if it was in the green book, and I gave him a four minute answer about voicing and doubling that he did not ask for. My spouse has asked me, gently, to please stop doing the version of that where I correct people's pronunciation of composer names over breakfast. I agreed to stop. I lasted about two days.
I bring that up because performance night is not the night to be Blake-with-the-four-minute-answer about what went wrong in measure forty. Let people have the feeling of having done the thing. Notes can wait for next week, if there even needs to be a next week.
Before next time: just show up. Bring water, bring whatever calms you down in a parking lot, and trust the ears you've built over these weeks more than the page.