I am flabbergasted and dumbfounded! Instead of waiting to be told that a madrigal group existed near by, I took the initiative and looked it up on my browser. There were over 8500 references and among the first group that came up were several about a madrigal group at Rutgers.  And, another one is in Cranford where friends once lived.  This is, indeed, a revelation.  As daughter Nancy demonstrated, you can find out the weather and plane schedules to avoid the kind of trouble you can get into when you defy the latest news and go anyway to the airport.

Now, I have to go back to that listing of sites and try to find something live going on near me. Even if I knew of the Rutgers thing they wouldn’t have me because I still can’t read music. That was the reason I couldn’t sign up for the Rutgers Choir while an undergraduate.  It didn’t stop me from singing in high school choirs and choruses AND the only madrigal group that I thought existed in the world. I was quite attracted by the notion that this was a unique form of “polyphonic” music.

I have this desire to sing once again in a madrigal group.  The high school ensemble that I sang bass in had some remarkable singers in it and I thought we produced some beautiful a capella sounds.  I must have fooled Miss Schneider, our music teacher, for I spent a couple of years not only practicing but giving performances with the groups.  Maybe it was because there were no other males around who thought singing medieval and renaissance a capella music was cool.  Maybe it was because all the other bass singers were now in the army fighting in World War II.

This all brings to mind the fact that I didn’t hear so good.  I always asked to be moved up in classrooms to the front.  I thought this was because of my eyesight and even when I wore glasses I liked to be closer to the blackboard and the teacher.  I guess it was also because my hearing has never been optimum.  I can recall how geekey I looked while in the madrigal quartet bending forward to get my left ear cocked towards the other voices around the table behind which we sat.  I was always on the left and tried to angle my left ear over to the sopranos whom I needed to hear in order to be on key and pitch.

This sounds as though I know what I am talking about musically.  This is not so. I have no idea what the choir I sing in now talks about when they call out specific notes and refer to breaks and measures and the like.  “Rests” also are a problem and the notations that tell me to go back for a repeat are still a mystery.  However, I really am interested in finding a madrigal group that would have me.