One of Jack's friends, who happens to be a shaman and whose mother is a very famous shaman, got married and he and his bride-to-be asked me to sing the congratulatory song at their wedding. Sometimes, the bride or groom will sing the song to each other, and sometimes someone else will sing it.
This is my first experience in a wedding hall. Everywhere, weddings are big business, but in Korea weddings are absolutely the ultimate in big business. Instead of churches, many people get hitched in wedding halls, whole buildings designed to cater to your wedding needs. When you are a guest at a wedding, you have to pay. If you are close to the couple, you pay a minimum of about $100 and if you are an acquaintance from work or elsewhere you pay anywhere from $30 to $50. The amounts are typically in odd numbers (accept 100 or 200). In this wedding hall, the actual place where the ceremony took place was on the top floor and the buffet, where we went to eat afterwards, was on a lower floor. Jack's friend's wedding began as another wedding had ended. Each ceremony lasts one hour or less and it's very wham-bam-thankyou-ma'am style. You do the ceremony, take your photos, and then get the heck out. Several attendants were there to make sure that everything went according to plan, and quickly.
When they asked me to sing, I had envisioned standing with the accompanying performers and watching the couple dance or something. But that was not to be the case. But...backing up: I was told the musicians did not have the notation for the piece ("I Will"), soI had sent the score with proper key and a recording (I wanted to do "I Will" Alison Krauss style; not peppy, but sweet) weeks in advance, but the bride did not tell me the musicians could not open the files. When I called to check, the bride said the musicians told her they did actually have notation and files I sent would not open so I resent the files through email. Still, the impression I got from the accompanists is that they did not really care and just wanted to get the song over with, so I was basically wasting my money and energy purchasing a score and editing it. I had envisioned, as well, doing the song with guitar or 25-string gayageum, but the bride had said there is already a piano, violin, and cello trio so I would have to use them. If I had had more foresight, I would have just asked a friend in Oakland to record the accompanying part on guitar and send it to me via email as an MP3 so that we could just play that while I sang. But, hindsight is 20/20. Instead, I got a pianist who, while willing to switch the key to fit my range, plodded ahead in the piece with little to no nuance and there was very little connecting us in the performance. I tried to match her speed, as she slowed to match mine, so the overall rhythm was totally off. We only had one rehearsal, when I got to the wedding site before the wedding. I will never do something like that again. Next time, if there is a next time, I'll either learn the guitar part myself or have a friend back home record it. That way, I'll get the sound, and soul, I want.
Anyway, I did it. And, going back to a point I made above: I had expected to sing in the background while focus was on the bride and groom--dancing, or doing something. I soon, and unexpectedly, learned that the singer who does the congratulatory song faces the bride and groom while they stand in front of those gathered and look at the singer while s/he sings. Awkward. That really made me very nervous, which affected my vocal quality (eck). The combination of the unexpected performance situtation and the pianist's soul-less accompaniment meant I was not at my best. I admit that, if I had known how things would go, I would have planned better and would have been able to do much, much better. Also, it might have been good to have practiced without singing along to the Alison Krauss version, since I had that so strongly in mind it was difficult to switch to a more literal interpretation of the notation. Still, people liked it and I did it, and that's important. Overall, it wasn't bad, but could have been better. I just love this song, and I love the way Alison Krauss sings it. It would have been great to have done it justice.
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