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It’s startling to realize that since Rachel is disqualified from competing at Sectionals, this only leaves her and Tina in New Directions.
No one - not even Puck - is tactless to say anything outright, but the atmosphere in choir room is grim: even with the addition of Sam, The Troubletones have taken all their strong female singers.
Quinn wonders if they should just give up now - obviously, there is no way that they can pull this off with the band kids swaying in the background.
The memory of losing at Nationals is fresh and she can’t even remember the last time they’ve won something real. Maybe not since quitting the Cheerios.
Tina passes her the bottle of sparkling cider and catches her eye. “Hey,” she says, twisting her mouth to a soft smile. “We’ll be fine. Kurt and I have been working on some awesome arrangements.”
“Really?” Quinn pours until it’s cup is half full and wishes that it were something stronger.
If Tina heard the doubt in her voice, she doesn’t let it show. “So how familiar are you with Janet Jackson’s ‘Control’?”
—
By the time they’ve run through ‘ABC’ and all their other numbers a few times, Quinn has to admit that that she thinks that they might actually have a chance.
Without Rachel, Santana, or Mercedes doing the heavy lifting- Quinn finds herself having to push herself vocally just to be heard.
Just from glancing over at Tina every now and then, she knows that Tina is probably experiencing the same thing.
It’s a tricky balance to keep themselves from being overpowered by the guys.
Mr. Schue keeps motioning to them, decrescendo, but that’s not part of Finn’s vocabulary and Puck finally elbows him and tells him to mouth ‘watermelon’ until he learns volume control.
“It figures that I’ll finally sing lead only when Rachel is suspended,” Tina tells her wryly, during a short break when the guys are off fooling around with the arrangement of ‘Man in the Mirror’.
Someone - one of the band kids - is unsuccessfully trying to get Puck to tone down his awful MJ impression which makes him sound like a sick duck.
“I think we’re doing pretty well on our own without Rachel.” Quinn is pleased when it comes out neutral; the last thing she needs is for someone to think that she hates Rachel again. “We’re sounding pretty good.”
Tina’s voice is chameleon-like, Quinn has discovered. She can pretty much do any genre, but it’s admittedly on the sweet side. It’s strong, but it doesn’t have the same grit as Santana’s.
As it turns out, she and Tina actually sound pretty good together. They’re both bell-like mezzo-sopranos, it seems natural that they would complement each other well, but it also have its disadvantages since it means that there’s not a lot of depth to their overall sound as a group.
They just have to make sure that their voices don’t sound too out of place in the sea of male tenors.
“We’re sounding good,” Tina agrees. She sighs. “We should sing together more often.”
From the way she keeps stealing looks at Mike and judging by the way they haven’t been joined at the hip lately, Quinn suspects that they’re having a fight.
It’ll probably blow over soon. Quinn can’t imagine Mike and Tina breaking up.
“We’ll sing something together after we win Sectionals, how about that?” Quinn suggests. At Tina’s look, “We’re going to win. You sound great in ‘ABC’.”
The smile Tina gives her is equal-parts touched and grateful.
Quinn thinks that they’re holding their own pretty well for the rest of practice.
She’s never considered herself a strong singer before; she can sing, but she had always felt like one of the weaker singers in New Directions. Her voice is better suited for mellow songs - not Adele or power ballads, but ‘Control’ lets her use her throatier, deeper speaking register at the beginning and maybe she should look into trying to work on her lower range.
Wthout Rachel or Mercedes in the room, Quinn knows that she’s trying her best to fill up the room (soon-to-be auditorium) with the sound that comes out when she opens her mouth - and it’s not as daunting as it was at the beginning.
And Quinn thinks she likes the feeling of being heard for once.