Tuesday, March 13, 2012

THREE EVENINGS OF MUSIC WITH FR.JOHN SAMUEL


This snap was taken after all the recording sessions on the last day of the BASS group. This was the last part of the whole project at Chennai that Fr.John had planned. The whole project involved the separate recording of the SUPRANO, TENOR, ALTO and BASS groups singing the Holy Sacrament songs of our church and then mixing it together to get the right harmony.

We all know the inaccurate rumour in history that Emperor Nero fiddled while Rome burned. I believe my situation was also of almost the same kind. I could not make it to one practice session before the recording as my sister had been admitted to the hospital. And during the actual recording for three evenings, my father had also been admitted.

From one perspective, it looked pretty odd to go out and sing when there was so much happening at home. But my father while on the hospital bed, told me that I should go as I had committed for the same. Besides there was a time when I was pretty young and was battling for life, when my father had promised that I would render my service for the church in some form. He reminded me about this atleast thrice.

Otherwise I felt real happy singing for this compilation. It was challenging as one had to remember a lot of tunes in a short span of time and so a knowledge of reading the music notes was vital.I was really lucky that I was in the company of Elias and Deepu(standing to my right), who were much better BASS singers and who were also much familiar in reading the music notes. It was nice to be a part of a professional recording while my singing was mostly home grown.

Fr.John is an inspiration. Blessed with an amazing voice, it was great to see him get the best out of all of us. He was able to spot even the smallest discord. I felt blessed standing beside him for singing one of the difficult and deep bass numbers. When I left our church on the night of the final day, I felt immensely satisfied.