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The Goddess Speaks

By Claudia Cannon

Tuesday, December 19, 2000

Harmony and me,
we’re good company

CHRISTMAS Day will find me propped up on the couch, surrounded by pillows, remote in hand, glass of Chardonnay at hand, and with chocolates somewhere in close proximity. I will spend the day gratefully supine.

For on the 12 days or so before Christmas I rush from work to a shopping mall, hotel lobby, restaurant or retirement home, to wriggle into a sparkly Christmas costume, apply extra make-up, fluff up my hair and join my chorus sisters in singing the songs of the holiday season.

We are Sweet Adelines, women barbershop singers, and there are 30,000 of us in more than 600 chapters worldwide, all pretty much doing the same thing through the already hectic days of December. Why? Because for us, our passion's not golf, gardening or crafts. We have fallen in love with singing four-part a cappella harmony.

Women usually come into this hobby in their 30s or 40s, when the demands of kids and career start to ease a bit and the longing for a heavy dose of right-brained activity (and a night out to yourself) is irresistible. Some stay with the hobby well into their 70s.

Some have a voice training background or ability to play a musical instrument, but most who join community choirs and groups haven't sung -- aside from warbling alone in the shower -- since days in the high school or church choir.

Because singing barbershop harmony is primarily done by ear, the musically astute and the novice find lots of common ground. The more experienced singers mentor the newcomer and on the very first night, a visitor can find herself up on the risers, surrounded by the voices in the chorus. Many get hooked that very first time.

AND hooked we are. There are telltale signs:

You are completely out of touch with local radio because you sing to practice tapes in your car. We even have a bumper sticker to warn other drivers.

You can put on panty hose, false eyelashes and your costume in 5 minutes flat, and do it surrounded by 30 other women doing the same thing in a crowded dressing room.

You discover you are a complete ham, especially if you get put in the front row and do extra dance steps.

You plan vacations to include visits to other choruses and are always welcomed like a long lost friend.

If you have to sing "Happy Birthday," you look around for three other voice parts.

The rewards are sublime. Every Tuesday evening, we gather for rehearsal and leave the stresses of the day at the door. The tensions melt away, disappearing into the sounds of the chords we sing.

Music heals, physically and emotionally, and we have seen it in each other more than once, as chorus sisters struggle with rebellious teen-agers, divorce, the passing of loved ones and illnesses of our own. The music and our musical community see us through.

We see the healing too, on the faces in our audiences, especially at Christmas time, as they put down heavy shopping bags, sink into a chair and gratefully listen, and sing with us, the songs of this beautiful season.

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Claudia Cannon is director of marketing for
Booklines Hawaii and owner of Naturally Native LLC.
See our Community Calendar for a list of choirs who need singers.

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The Goddess Speaks runs every Tuesday
and is a column by and about women, our strengths, weaknesses,
quirks and quandaries. If you have something to say, write it and
send it to: The Goddess Speaks, the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, P.O.
Box 3080, Honolulu, 96802, or send e-mail
to features@starbulletin.com.

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