What's weird though, is going back after five years' absence. It's almost like I never left. The rehearsel room is the same, half of the faces are the same, even the same old guy hitting on me as soon as I walked in the door (long story, he does this to all the females in the choir). And the music is of course the same (yay recycled repertoire!) Although, it was long enough since I've sung any of it that I had to remember very quickly my sight reading skills.
But the truly neat part is that all of the muscle memory of singing for most of my life came back almost instantly. I was worried about that, about perhaps having lost my ability to control my voice, to breathe correctly, to use my diaphragm right, etc. But it's all still there. A bit rusty, and I'm sure my stomach will hurt tomorrow with that pain of long unused muscles, but I could do it. Yay! And more amazingly, my voice held out the entire 2.5 hours of rehearsel, only failing at one high B flat late in the evening (though I was hitting above C before that, so with practice that will fix itself).
No, I probably shouldn't be surprised. 20 years of serious vocal training with the best in the city should leave its permanent imprint, but after 5 years of the most serious singing I've done being at Punk Karaoke..... well, I wasn't sure that the vocal muscles would be up to the task anymore. So yay for pleasant surprises there!
Now to just relearn my voice, since it has matured.... a lot... the past five years. Heh.
