Old Bridge Chamber Orchestra Presents: How to ‘Handel’ the ‘Messiah’ sing-along without being disowned by your family

The rules are simple.

Handel’s inimitable Messiah Oratorio is just a few months short of its 275th birthday, and it continues to delight audiences around the world. Countless orchestras and vocalists have gathered to celebrate the season with this perennial favorite, often with a significant audience participation component. Will you be ready when sing along time comes? Just in case, we are pleased to provide you with this summation of centuries’ worth of rules for “Handeling” the time-honored tradition of the “Messiah” Sing-Along.

Rule 1: Do Your Vocal Warm-ups in the Car on the Way to the Performance

You can’t belt out “For unto Us a Child Is Born” with a tense larynx. On the other hand, repeating in the concert hall “fluffy floppy puppy” and “Sally saw Silvester stacking silver saucers side by side” might be alarming to your fellow concert-goers.

Your best bet is to warm up in the car using exercises like humming up and down a scale or singing “Don’t Stop Believin’” at the top of your lungs.

Rule 2: Pick the Right Performance

To get the most out of a “Messiah” Sing-Along, you need support and lots of it. You need a well-prepared orchestra, dynamite soloists, and a chorus of pros to help you negotiate those tricky passages.

Fortunately for you, that’s precisely the kind of support system you’ll find on Friday, December 16, 2016, 7:30 PM, at First Baptist Church, 13600 Minnieville Road, Woodbridge, and again on Saturday, December 17, 2016, 7:30 PM, at Grace United Methodist Church, 9750 Wellington Road, Manassas.

Old Bridge Chamber Orchestra and featured choruses from First Baptist, Grace UMC, All Saints Catholic Church, and New Dominion Choraliers will be there for you; you don’t have to go it alone. Admission is free, though donations will be accepted gratefully.

Rule 3: Sit Next to a Ringer

Watch for someone walking confidently into the concert. Likely, he or she will be wearing an artfully disheveled scarf and carrying a marked-up, dog-eared copy of the Messiah score.

This is how you will know that this is not his or her first rodeo. Follow that person into the audience. Befriend the singer. Imitate him or her fiercely.

Rule 4: When in Doubt, Mouth the Word “Watermelon”

No need to panic if you’ve lost your place in the score! Scientists are not sure why this is true, but mouthing “watermelon” is the perfect choral faking device. It also works well if intonation is not your forte.

Rule 5: Employ the Art of Misdirection

You may not be able to sing your way out of a paper bag, but that doesn’t have to be common knowledge.

Rock an obnoxious holiday sweater. If it’s loud enough, no one will notice that you are completely tone deaf. If your sweater game is weak, study up on puns, carefully dropping one at the end of each chorus.

Saying things like “That one was too hot to Handel” will result in the kind of groans that will erase any memory of what you just did to “And He Shall Purify.”

To address the younger audience members giving you side-eye about your not-quite-baritone baritone, try saying “The club can’t even Handel me right now.” That should shut them up.

Rule 6: Have Fun

An OBCO Sing Along is about the community coming together in song. It is impossible to leave without feeling joy, inspiration, and the fullness that comes from artistic satisfaction … and post-concert cider and cookies.

An OBCO Sing Along is about the community coming together in song. It is impossible to leave without feeling joy, inspiration, and the fullness that comes from artistic satisfaction … and post-concert cider and cookies.

For more information, visit www.obco.org or www.facebook.com/obcomusic.