PWAC Victoria: Jeff Bateman, Writing Sample

The Reading Room

"Him Sing"

by Jeff Bateman ©

My tentative and only somewhat tuneless first step into Victoria's Gettin' Higher Choir. Western Living, Dec. 2002.

The name tag reads "Jeff, Gettin' Higher Choir." I'm tempted to ink in a question mark. Yes, I'm a paid-up newcomer to Victoria's 317-voice, no-audition (read: all are welcome) amateur choir. But no, I'm not so sure I belong in this harmonious company. I'm an unschooled yelper, an enthusiast who raggedly croons along with Neil Young and David Gray on the home stereo. The gentlemen of the Tuesday night bass section are a more refined breed entirely. They understand the dynamics of singing as one, of blending their rumble with the melodious tenors, altos and sopranos arrayed around them. By comparison I'm tuneless and tin-eared as we work on a South African freedom song.

Mere rookie jitters, Shivon Robinsong tells me later. Gettin' Higher's founder and co-director argues that the ability to make a joyous noise is a human birthright. The "either you've got it or you don't" syndrome kicks in early, she says, and renders most of us mute. Robinsong (yes, that's her genuine, entirely serendipitous married name) figured she was the talentless one in a musical Winnipeg family that includes brother Oliver Gannon, the Juno Award-winning jazz guitarist. As a co-founder of the Hollyhock Institute, the renowned retreat centre on Cortes Island, B.C., she discovered her life's calling while studying with such mentors as the singer Anne Mortifee.

Just 40 people turned out for the first GHC in 1996. Three CDs and many fund-raising concerts later, it stands as a local institution and role model in a burgeoning community choir movement that emphasizes participation first, musical skill second. Robinsong's workshops have seeded choirs across Vancouver Island. Calgary's Westwinds Music Society has four levels of choir, including a "green" division for neophytes. Activist Edmontonians can enroll in Notre Dame des Bananes, which has been belting out feisty labour songs since the '70s (including a set alongside Bruce Cockburn at the G-8 summit last summer). Flin Flon's community choir has performed with the Saskatoon Symphony.

"Learning to listen," Robinsong advises, is key for any team-oriented chorister. So, for now, I'm singing softly, working on my breathing patterns, and slowly developing the confidence to step forward and be heard. That's enough on evenings when one does indeed "get higher" in a very real sense by inhaling so much oxygen, finding one's place in a community of voices, and allowing the content of the repertoire (which ranges from U2 to Bach) to lift one's spirits. My credo for now: to sing is human, to hum divine.

Jeff Bateman
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Last updated: February 1, 2004 http://www.islandnet.com/pwacvic/batemn09.html