Singing in the Colosseum

I was singing with the Palestrina Choir from Christendom under the direction of Dr. P, and it consisted of everyone who had ever sung with that choir (so it was bigger than it ever was in real life). We received an invitation to sing at the Roman Colosseum with another choir, I think the Vatican Choir. Anyway, so for some reason, when we arrived at Rome, the director of the Vatican choir took one look at me and said, "I didn't want EVERYone."

On a side note, having never been to the real Colosseum, my mind associated the exterior with the stage. Each person had their own individual window, and they were all stacked on top of each other, so there were no rows of people standing behind each other.

Anyway, everyone else took their places in the Colosseum-windows including Dr. P, who sang in my place when he wasn't directing. Out of a massive choir, I could easily see Brittany and Beth, as they had ground and second row positions, and when I looked around, everyone else had blended into the structure well. When they began singing, the sound was an absolutely glorious one, but one dominated by the Palestrina Chorale. While the director was busy patting himself on the back for such a fantastic idea of blending his choir with Dr. Poterack's, all the while suggesting to his own choir that they paled in comparison to Christendom's.

So, after listening to the whole practice, I had to evacuate, because it was a sold-out house, to standing-room only, and even that was filled to overflowing. The choir was supposed to wait in their positions for the audience to come in (which they did in droves).

Since there was nothing for me to do except either listen to the concert from outside or go exploring, I did the latter, since I had heard the practice. Unfortunately for both of us, I don't remember this part of the dream.

Confessions

I was visiting California again, but this time I was alone. I had been there for about a week or so, and I thought that I should go to confession. I found the closest Catholic church, and was amazed at it's external beauty. When I went inside, I saw one of the most intricately beautiful and ornate interiors of a church that I've ever seen, and I was really surprised that the modern day American Catholics would let such a work of art dedicated to God remain standing. After gawking for a few minutes, I found the confessionals, and it so happened that I walked into the church while confessions were being heard. The older priest sat in a glass box so that he could see the line, while the penitent was in the confessional box, completely hidden from the rest of the church. However, they had a window with a curtain that they could open and close that faced the priest. You could only tell that there was a penitent in the confessional, because the priest would lean in to hear the confession, and the hands of the penitent were folded prayerfully and sitting on top of the windowsill.

I managed to get a look at the pastor -- I'd seen the face before somewhere, but I couldn't recall. He was a large man (stocky, not really fat) with white hair and a look that said he's fed up with the tolerance of today's people towards sin.

The other priest was without a confessional, but instead had a chair and a kneeler next to him, without a screen. He was much younger, and his hair was kind of shaggy and unkempt. He looked almost like a guy who had spent the first 25 years of his life being a roadie.

So I joined the line, and as both priests were occupied, I was mentally preparing myself. I was hoping to get the pastor, but the younger priest's penitent walked away first and there was no one behind me in line to wave ahead, so I went to the younger priest.

I knelt down and went through the usual process: "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned." And he cut me off.

He said, "Is that it? The only reason you came to confession?" I looked at him, being somewhat shocked, and he said, "Everyone makes mistakes. Is this your only mistake?"

I stammered back, "But, Father, I haven't even begun to tell you my sins -- I hadn't even told you how long it's been."

He said, "That's not necessary. You've told your sins to God. I don't need to hear them."

My jaw almost hit the floor. He couldn't be serious.

He was. He then got up and started walking around me, talking about the love of God, the power of confession to forgive sins, how only God has the power to forgive sins, and how God has bestowed upon His clergy the ability to forgive sins, and that this was just as good of a confession as him actually hearing all your sins.

Then he did something completely unexpected.

He asked me if I'd like to hear his latest song that he wrote. Somewhere out of the blue, he produced an old guitar, and began playing what sounded like an indie-acoustic song with mild Christian overtones. I don't know the words.

Then he did something almost-completely unexpected.

He started to dance.

I'm still kneeling on the kneeler.

He's dancing and singing.

I'm having a hard time choking down my laughter at the hippie around me singing and dancing.

He's still singing and dancing.

I look around the church to see if anyone else is as weirded out by this as I am. Aside from the old pastor who is still with his penitent, I'm the only other penitent in the church.

At this point, I woke up to find my alarm clock going off. It's an electric guitar playing music from the Metroid video games.

Singing with the Collegium

I dreamed that I was in concert with the Collegium Cantorum at Old St. Mary's, and we were singing the new stuff. Everyone was ready except for me. I had reviewed the music, but we had decided to do a pre-performance and then do the practices.

Let's just say it was a good thing I was in the back row.

I woke up with the urge to go to the bathroom, but my mind was still in the dream, where I snuck out of the church to use the restroom. After doing my thing and going back to bed, the dream picked right back up where it left off. We began singing, except that we weren't singing just Josquin -- we were doing random songs from the complete repertoire. I had the opening piece in my binder, fortunately, but I wasn't prepared for it, even though it was one of the pieces I had done before.

Anyway, somewhere along the line, the dream faded out...

Singing skills?

So I was out singing in a large concert hall with the guys (Francis, Paul, Michael, David, and Dr. P), but all of them were singing waaaaay louder than me. No matter how much I tried to blend, they were all the business of overpowering me while looking at me with looks of smug success on their faces. So I decided to go all operatic on them. (I can't actually sing operatically, and even if I could do that, I couldn't match Dr. P.) I began belting out the melody line of what it was that we were singing. The crowd went nuts as my voice went higher and higher and higher and everyone else got louder still. I then realized that I actually don't have this kind of power as high as I was going, nor this good of a voice. I sounded like Draper. I looked around, but I couldn't see him.

The camera panned out from my field of vision, and Draper was actually there, and he was actually singing, and was matching me without seeing me, note for note, beat for beat, and motion for motion. We were in perfect sync, except that when we passed the High G's, he kept going and my voice had to switch into falsetto.

When Draper walked out on stage, our sextet had turned into a septet. The crowds were on their feet, cheering. I wasn't sure if we were in America doing our thing or in Russia singing the national anthem.