April 26, 2022: Sectional Derision -

Everything is wrong with this shirt.

To begin with, it’s a crime against design, where they used whatever font size they needed to plump out the line. It makes it seem the altos are booming away, when really both the word “altos” and the phrase “it was us” are just low on letters.

Also, tenors are rare and precious creatures, but writing “tenor,” singular, is overdramatizing the scarcity issue.

And sopranos are not snitches, and basses are sexy, brilliant, and possessed of highly-developed senses of humor.

All these stereotypes are SO unfair. And as everyone knows, the different sections need each other, in order to make beautiful music.

Not to mention that the entire premise is flawed. No director has ever said, “There was a MISTAKE!”  Please. Have these t-shirt people no experience in singing groups?

Directors say, with whatever subtle overtones are necessary to express their underlying emotional state, “Let’s take it from the pickup to letter C, alto entrance.” 

And yet.

And yet, I have always liked this shirt, offensive and wrong-headed though it may be, because I read it as a love letter to my beloved section.  Altos are great. We are, on our best days, honest, unpretentious, responsible, and low-maintenance. We are, on our best days, not unduly defensive. We graciously accept human failings in ourselves, and even in you people. We are good friends. When we make a mistake, we admit it!

Furthermore, we do not buy the shirt, however much it may tempt us, because we would do anything not to hurt the feelings of our one, irreplaceable tenor.