Sam, I love this. I can see what the goddess meant about the aulos-face, though. A beard helps.
Julie, I wish I understood what it meant to listen to the other singers and blend in. I am one of those people who simply can't sing in anything other than an informal solo situation with kind people or when very drunk and in the company of drunker others. Even then I can see the winces and notice how soon it is that someone speaks up and suggests a tour of the garden or a bite to eat.
In church, even when it's an easy Wesley hymn and I love it enough to want not to hurt it, I find that all I can hear is my own voice, off-key and loud, echoing as if I'm bellowing into a bucket. I can't hear anyone else unless I shut up myself. So I mime - if I were performing Gray's Elegy I'd be the silent tenor. Nor can I understand how anyone can make a particular note come out in response to a blob on a stave.
But I am not bad at Tibetan overtone chanting, which is a wonderful way of repelling cold-callers if you start low and build up to weapons-grade intensity over the course of a couple of minutes.
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