Imperfect Harmony: Finding Happiness Singing with Others by Stacy Horn

Imperfect Harmony is a non-fiction book that marries a memoir a musical education. Stacy Horn entertains and educates us with the inner workings of a church choir as well as the history of some of the world’s most important musical pieces.

Stacy takes us on her journey which starts with her joining the choir and the reasons behind it. We travel through her years and all the politics behind a church choir that most people, who have never belonged to a church choir, don’t know.

I was able to relate to a lot of the inner workings of her church choir as mine has similar situations happen. I especially liked the part where she said:

“I tried to catch the eye of everyone around me who wasn’t a soprano I. I get it. First sopranos don’t feel this. You hear it, but you don’t feel it. You don’t know that those lowly peasants making a nice vocal cushion for you to step on had parts that were every bit as rapturous as yours”

This rings very true. Many sopranos tend to feel superior, when in truth, all the parts are necessary in the choir. Of course this is something that one who is not in a choir, may not know.

I loved her stories of the people she sang with. Also being a New Yorker, and dealing with very similar personalities, I couldn’t help but to smile.

Another pretty cool thing I learned from this book was that: “…hearing loss starts at high frequencies and slowly progresses downward.”

Now I understand why the older women in my choir are always off key.

I thought this was a wonderful peek inside the life of one woman and her choir. It also opened my eyes to a lot of music I never heard. After reading this, I searched around for many of the music she commented on in this book.

The world is full of beautiful music. Stacy Horn makes it a little easier to find.