For those who don't know, I sing in the choir of the Episcopal Cathedral Church of St. Mark here in SLC. Tenor. We had our usual two-service gig for Christmas Eve, with the second being the more musically intense. We finished at 12:30, and I had long since descended into a very bad mood. Hells I was writing dirty, alternative lyrics to carols in the program from the beginning of the second service.
I felt burned out at the end of the last liturgical calendar in June, but everyone was. We'd reactivated in May 2021 after the COVID lockdown, then we went straight through the Summer and the entire 2021-22 liturgical year. 13 months straight. We were all ready for a break. This time is different. I've felt this way toward music just once before: late 1989.
Back in the 80s I was very involved in music. In college because it was my first chance to play regularly with really good musicians. In law school because I could play with even better musicians, and because music was the only thing that kept me from going up in Rackham with a sniper rifle. In Salt Lake after law school because it was fun and I wanted to avoid dealing with being on a career path to nowhere. Things didn't last, though. First both Connie Brannock and Alta Dustin got screwed by the record companies, and the local rock scene kind of dissolved, leaving only a punk scene still wrapped up in "authenticity" arguments and a pop scene suitable only for ortho-Morms. The instrumental groups I was in dissolved as well. I was left with First Unitarian Choir and the Ad Hoc Singers, a Renaissance and Reformation group. And I was getting tired of both.
The Unitarian choir was decent enough, but we weren't doing anything as exciting as what we'd been doing in the Unitarian choir in Ann Arbor. More importantly, though, I was tired of the church's namby pamby, middle of the road message. There were a lot of things that needed calling out, and the entire denomination was disinterested in doing any calling. With a new wife who wasn't Unitarian and one toddler and a baby on the way, I didn't have time for such things. I had one foot out the door by the end of 1989.
The Ad Hocs tore themselves apart. Part of the group wanted to perform more seriously. Another part had no time for that. On top of that, my wife joined the group, replacing a soprano who had left, and two of the members decided to be totally toxic toward her and also target me. And I doubly didn't have time for that shit. We'd have been gone, but the Ad Hocs broke up first. And so I found myself outside of any musical group for the first time in over 20 years. And I thought to myself, "You know, I don't care. This has stopped being fun." I did a jam session in April 1990 at the long-gone Blind Pig in Lincoln Park, and that was my last public gig.
For over 27 years. Until wife talked me into joining the St. Mark's choir for Advent 2017. It's been pretty good, even with wife off to Washington, and even with the COVID lockdown. But Christmas Eve the old feeling crept back: This isn't fun anymore.
Part of it is physical. I probably have a hiatal hernia, although since there's nothing simple that can be done about it, and since this is the United States and we can't have nice things like affordable health care, I'm not going to have it diagnosed until I'm on Medicare. Let's just say it negatively affects my diaphragm. But there's also a social aspect. I've always generally gotten along with everyone, but there's always been something off between me and the tenor and bass sections heads, and that offness is getting offer. And I have a lot less time for that shit than I did 33 years ago.
