“Hello.”

“uhm.. hi”

“Name?”

“Rose.” – gah should’ve used my real name.

“Are you shy?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, shy people have no place for joining in this competition.”

I should’ve lied.

“Actually sir, I’m joining because I want to overcome my shyness and to rise up my confidence.”

“ok, sing.”

I sang Kelly Clarkson’s Breakaway..

Maestro then raised his hand to stop.

“have you joined a Chorale?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you know your voice group?”

“Yes, sir, Soprano 2.”

“Can you follow a staccato?”

“uhm.. staccato sir?”

He then played a staccato.

“Follow this…”

I sang and follow the notes he played.

“Good, thank you so much.”

“You’re welcome sir.”

A week before the competition, I am confronted by another man who will be our trainer.  I don’t know what happened to the maestro who auditioned me, but the thing is, the job of training the chorale for the upcoming competition was thrown into another person, who happens to be my Major instructor.

Miss Bautista, my instructor, happens to ask this “widow” to conduct and train us. Unfortunately, majority of us were women and didn’t even know what falsetto means. It’s like going back to zero, even though our trainer is a skilled one, who has experience of joining chorale competitions, even had a hard time adjusting and training us because most of us are dummies.

Singing is way too different when you sing in a chorale, and I pray that we’ll overcome this and somehow manage to perform it, in a way that is acceptable.