Christmas carols with the male voice choir

Tonight we sing at the service of nine lessons in our local church.  So it is tights under black trousers, thick socks, thermal vest under white shirt and a few deep breaths.

I am not sure I would ever have sung with a choir if we had not come to Wales.  I am not particularly musical and have a voice which only works at all if there are other people around who can hold the tune.   I sing soprano because I find it easier to keep to the familiar tune but the very high notes are really beyond me and from time to time I am just opening my mouth.  But I absolutely love it, surrounded by the music, riding a wave of sound.

The choir is a male voice choir, with rich bass voices that make the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.  Once a year for Christmas they invite the women from the village to join them for the Carol Service and I got swept along on the very Welsh assumption that every one can sing really, despite my protests.  For six weeks we have rehearsed on a Monday evening, the old favourites like The Holly and the Ivy and We Three Kings sounding fresh and true with the harmony of the different voices.  But my favourites are the carols in Welsh.  Who would have believed a few years ago that I could ever sing at all, never mind in Welsh, but I find that I can, with friends around and a following wind.

This is not our choir but I wanted to share the extraordinary beauty of the sound.    Just ordinary people, firemen, policemen, nurses, housewives, farmers and their wives, ordinary people making an extraordinary sound. Is it just me or does it make your nerves tingle too? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RjOE-336qo