Big Time by Ryan Tom;

Author:Ryan, Tom;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: JUV031040, JUV039060, JUV026000
Publisher: Orca Book Publishers
Published: 2014-03-01T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

As I suspected, Meg thinks the whole thing is insane.

“What do you think you’re going to gain from singing with a choral club?” she asks.

It’s after school on Tuesday, and I’ve just explained to her that I can’t go to the mall with her because I have to get some extra help from Ms. Kogawa.

“I don’t know.” I shrug. “I just want to learn more about music.”

“I don’t see the point,” she says, following me down the hallway. “You don’t need musical training these days to hit it big. Music producers don’t even expect you to have a good voice. They just shove everything through Auto-Tune and out pops a hit single. It’s more important to develop a good image than to waste your time with lessons and stuff”

“I’m not trying to get a hit single, Meg,” I say. “I’m joining choral club because I like to sing, and this is a good way to practice and maybe learn a few things”

She looks at me as if I’ve just sprouted a third eyeball from my forehead.

“That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard,” she says. “If you really want to sing, you should just sing on your own. You’ve got a wicked voice. I bet you wouldn’t even need Auto-Tune. I’m telling you, Gerri, you need to think about your image. I say this as your friend: choral club is not going to help your image.”

“Meg, I don’t care about my image. This has nothing to do with trying to be famous.”

“Well, last time I checked, people don’t try out for Big Time if they aren’t interested in being famous.”

We arrive outside the doorway to Ms. Kogawa’s classroom at the same time as Tyler.

“What do you think Kogawa is going to make us do?” he asks me.

“Who knows? This is all new to me.”

“I should have picked school paper,” he says before opening the door and walking into the classroom.

“Is he in choral club?” asks Meg.

“Yeah,” I say. “He’s doing it for the extracurricular.”

“I wonder if there are any spots open,” she says, peering through the doorway at him.

“I don’t think they use Auto-Tune in choral club,” I tell her. “I have to go. I’ll text you later.”

Ms. Kogawa passes me some papers as I come into the room. It’s more sheet music, but a lot simpler than the music we used in practice.

“The goal over the next few weeks,” she says, “is for the two of you to become comfortable with basic sight-reading. I don’t expect you to get up to the same level as everyone else in the group, and that’s fine because a lot of this will be memorization, but you’ll find that a bit of hard work on this end will lead to a better understanding of things down the road.”

For a few minutes we run scales and do some vocal exercises. Then we start to work on the music she’s given us. We stand next to her at the piano as she plays variations on “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” and “The Farmer in the Dell.

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