Since choir attendance was so low, I had to do something different. I decided to invite everyone, both singers and choir boosters, to a choir-planning potluck after church. A FEW people attended, including the pastor. This precipitated The Crisis. To this day I have mixed feelings about what happened that day: primarily guilt, but also the "what-else-could-I do?" thoughts that came with a practical, but certainly not perfect, solution. 

That Sabbath, the pastor was the one who brought John* to church. John was blind, profoundly hard of hearing and thought he was a great musician. Of course he stayed for lunch. He spent a great deal of time telling me how wonderful he had been in his high school choir many years before. My heart sank. He had been on my music committees before, and I had ended up spending several times more time "helping" him do his share than it would have taken to do it myself. Someone would have to make the effort to transport him to rehearsals, and he lived a good distance away from church. His voice was very loud, extremely resonant and stuck out in a crowd. He couldn't stay in tune even when he had accompaniment. When he sang a cappella, every long note he sang slid down at least a quartertone and then

he continued in the new "key". His rhythm skills weren't any better. And, of course, there was no way for him to sing on cue if he couldn't see the cues.

          Poor pitch, rhythm, and tone quality were problems that I had dealt with before—by teaching the person how to listen and count and by demonstrating the right way to produce

*Not his real name.

good vocal tone. In all my years of teaching music, I had never told a person they couldn't participate in a group due to lack of musical ability. I had just set about teaching them the skills they needed. However, most of my music teaching techniques included visual aspects.

I demonstrated physical singing skills and wrote rhythms to count on the board and drew pictures of what a phrase should sound like. I had never taught music by rote. It was partly my own lack of rote teaching skills, but I didn't see any feasible way to accommodate his disabilities in a church choir situation--especially since prayer responses were conducted totally by visual cues.

I had no idea what I would--or should do. My heart said, "Include him somehow." My head said, "There's no practical way to include John without totally destroying the quality of the choir's music. Even if we fix the pitch, rhythm and tone quality problems that are the result of his deafness, he will never be able to sing with the group; he will always be waiting to hear the note before he sings it and will always be late. As super-resonant as his voice was, late entrances and early exits would always be glaringly obvious." I also thought that decreasing the choir's quality would be the beginning of its end. I couldn't fathom anyone wanting to join a group that would never be able to sing together.

          Although the pastor had indicated that it was to be my choice; it was a choice I didn't want to make--ever. There was no good answer in sight and I was desperately praying for a solution that would save the quality of the choir without permanently alienating John.

Go to Chapter 5.