The Choral Conducting Betrayal

Choral conducting final I walked into my choral conducting final feeling pretty confident. The class was my choir, I was the conductor, and all I had to do was keep everyone together, stay calm, and show that I knew what I was doing.

Easy enough… until the sopranos.

Two ladies in the back — lovely people, great musicians — decided, for reasons known only to the universe, to sing a half‑step below the actual note. Not a whole step. Not a random pitch. Just slightly wrong. The kind of wrong that only perfect pitch people hear like a fire alarm.

And because I have synesthesia, their notes weren’t just wrong — they were the wrong color. The chord was supposed to be this nice, warm gold. Instead, it was this weird muddy green that made my brain twitch.

So there I was, conducting with my right hand like a normal human being… while my left hand started doing this frantic up‑up‑up motion, like I was trying to lift a stubborn garage door.

My face betrayed me. My head tilted sideways. My eyes got huge. I looked like a cartoon character trying to conduct through a migraine.

The rest of the class was probably thinking, “Why is Cody conducting with one hand and having a seizure with the other?”

I was sure I failed. Absolutely convinced. I walked out thinking, “Well… that’s it. My conducting career died because two sopranos sang a half‑step low.”

But no. I passed. Apparently the professor thought my “expressive left hand” was a sign of musical sensitivity.

If only he knew.