Sometimes, things can be so obvious that I just can't think of them. Take singing, for instance. I've been struggling with my voice for quite some time, and so far always sought the cause inside: bad posture, bad technique, bad mentality, bad, baaaad Maaike.

But last week, I tried another choir. And there it dawned on me that I'm not the only factor causing my problems. This new choir is an all-women gregorian/ plain chant choir. Choir is perhaps a big word, because it's only six of us. The conductor payed lots of attention to proper breathing, resonance, using our voices to creat one sound, and singing with her and the others was wonderful.

After rehearsal, it struck me that I didn't have any of my voice problems. In fact, I felt really good, energetic, excited even. Which made me wonder, could it perhaps be that some choirs fit me better than others? I've been singing in choirs my entire life already, and only when I joined my latest church choir, I started having voice trouble.

So, I started listing differences between my problematic choir and other choirs that I sung in:
- We rehearse sitting in our chairs, while I'm used to standing.
- We do no voice warming up whatsoever.
- We only focus on getting the notes right; no attention for real music making
- We only sing Mozart and later composers, while I prefer polyphonic music and plain chant.
- My effective singing time during rehearsals is about 15 minutes, because we always have to wait for the men.

Hmmm...go figure. Of course, this doesn't mean that I want to put all 'blame' outside me, but when I see this list, it does make me think.