Merry Christmas!

I enjoy reading and hearing Christmas passages like this from the Bible. It's much more meaningful than all the nonsense we get rammed down our throats these days :o)
Merry Christmas ! ...

Happy Christmas and may 2014 be good for you.

Hope Santa is good to you :O) have a happy Christmas and great New Year. :O)

Melchi...have to ask..is that your family bible? it is incredible! Great the way that passage fits perfectly in to a photo too! :)) I shall be singing this passage from the Messiah all day now....:)) Happy Memories for me!

You've started me off now Karen - it's replaced "And the glory" in my head...
Lovely Melchi, yes it does make a good change. Every blessing to you and yours.

Merry Christmas Melchi, I hope you have a wonderful time as well.
Best Wishes for 2014 to you and your family.....

Thank you all for your good wishes!

Karen - that is a poster made by OH. It is on the wall of the stair well, and is about 3 foot square. Making Christmas decs is one of his hobbies. The house is like Santa's grotto at this time of year, and most of the things are hand-made.

Steragram - we also have several posters with extracts from "Messiah" (our parish priest said "I call it 'Isaiah', not 'Messiah' " !) We have several recorded versions as well, and they all get played throughout December. Beautiful! (I first sang an SSA version when I was in 6th Form. Happy memories indeed!)

ah! how lovely...brilliant idea! Yes, it does have an awful lot of Isaiah in doesn't it, Handel's 'Messiah' I had no idea how much of Isaiah I could quote for years! ;)

What voice are you Melchi? I'm alto. Where I used to live we used to do it every year, but it doesn't seem to happen round here and I miss it. We were once packed into the choir stalls of a big church with the orchestra jammed up in between, and the organ caught fire and we had to squeeze ourselves out - good thing it wasn't serious!

Gosh - an unforgettable performance, I should think!

I started at school as an alto, but when I was at college discovered I'm actually a mezzo with high notes! My voice gradually got higher as it matured. I do very little singing now. I play the organ at church, so get plenty of hymn practice from the other perspective!

I envy you - I tried hard with the piano but used to sit there apologizing to Chopin for messing it up. Gave it up in despair in the end. What's the range of a mezzo? I can sing higher than I could through necessity as the lead soprano in our tiny chapel left so I couldn't sing alto there any more as nobody sang if I didn't - they seem to need somebody to hide behind so it made me lose some of my inhibitions and had to go for those Es. I once managed the descant to O come all ye faithful when outdoor carol singing but it finished me for the evening! It was probably pitched a lot lower than it should have been as well.

Do you know - I'm not sure what the range of a mezzo is! I could sing up to top C, but I couldn't stay up there. When I went to college I could sing from G below middle C to top D, but my voice settled in the middle of the soprano range. If - occasionally - I sing a solo psalm which is a bit low, it now finishes my voice for days. My son is a pro singer and tells me that I could still do it if I worked at it, but ... "been there, done that" comes to mind. All my singing has been small-scale church stuff. I loved doing it, but have a horror of going on too long and having people wonder why I just don't give up! I have had huge enjoyment over the years, but honestly am quite relieved to stop. I find it a bit stressful these days!

But what a wonderful occupation music is. We have all had huge enjoyment from it. OH sings at church and I play and our sons and daughter are all heavily involved in music in various ways. It really has been a huge thing in our lives.

You may find that (as I was encouraged to at school) you have always thought of yourself as an alto because you could produce those notes and had the ability to hold the line. Such singers are worth their weight in gold! But if you have higher notes, you may actually be a soprano.

Lovely sentiments Susanne . . . and I hope all those things for you too :)))

Thank you, Sheila!

Happy Christmas to you and yours Mel.

Thank you, Scotsgran, and the same to you.

I can't imagine ever being a soprano Melchi. I don't think I sound like one though its hard to tell yourself, but E is my absolute limit and needs me to check posture, breath etc before I can launch into it. But I've never been a soloist, nothing more than just starting everybody off if the organist is missing! It must have been great to discover you were one. Happy New Year anyway.

Thanks, Stera, and the same to you! You sound like a stalwart to me!