Growing up, I loved to sing. Even better, I knew I COULD sing, because I got a lot of external validation. "You have a beautiful voice," they told me. (Ahh, external validation, that double-edged sword. I'm going to have to do a blog post just about that.) The problem with being told that- is all of a sudden, you start to pay attention to the voices around you- and you start to compare. You notice the beautiful ones, and you want your voice to sound like that. Because now you have expectations to fill, and you don't want to let anyone down! And you start to crave another hit of that sweet nectar- those compliments, that applause.
So I joined church choirs, and school choirs- I even auditioned for the "gifted and talented" music program at school. But the voices around me were growing ever so much brighter, while mine was becoming more constricted. The hand of Vulnerability was fastened around my throat, and every time I compared myself to one of the singing angels around me, She clenched her fist, and I felt like I was strangling. Singing publicly (especially a solo) was becoming a struggle. Everything felt tight, like my voice was stuck in my throat. I had become overly aware that one friend made up harmonies in her head, and another could riff on the fly. I could do no such things. I just wasn't good enough.
But my parents knew I wanted to perform for a living. I had focused mainly on ballet up to this point, and done a lot of acting, too. So they decided I could round that out with some voice lessons. There were only a couple of games in town- and my one friend was already studying with the other guy (she liked him, so I'm not sure how I ended up with Joyce,) but it was kismet.
As an incoming freshman, I had auditioned for the Concert Choir at our high school, and I hadn't gotten in. The band director (was also somehow the choir director, and that's probably all you need to know about how knowledgable he was about the voice...) But he was very knowledgeable in being intimidating to 14 yr old girls, because he impressed upon me the idea that I wasn't good enough, that I couldn't hold pitch. But Joyce made a throwaway comment one day while I was singing Mabel from The Pirates of Penzance for her- "you have great natural pitch," she said, and for the first time, I felt Vulnerability loosen her hold on my throat, ever so slightly.
It's not lost on me NOW that I was letting all of these grown-ups dictate how I felt about myself, as I write this, but that's what you do when you're a teenager, right? Do teachers and parents ever truly understand the great responsibility they hold in molding young people? Joyce did. She was always nurturing and kind. My voice grew and flourished under her. But more importantly, my confidence did. And she taught me life lessons about how to be a woman and a human being. I showed up one day to a lesson unprepared (and instead of reaming me, which would happen to me with other voice teachers in later years) she stopped the lesson, (when she could see I was close to tears,) and had me show her my calendar. Then she started crossing items out. She was encouraging me to say no to things I had said yes to, out of obligation, or because I didn't yet know how to form boundaries. It was the first time someone showed me how to do this (but not the last- I had a therapist repeat this exact moment fifteen years later when she had me hand over my calendar, and say "no" to something for homework.) I would hope that by now, at age 43, I have finally learned this lesson. But Joyce was the first to introduce me to it.
When I submitted my audition tape for All-Southeast Honor Choir, I had to give it to the dreaded band director. He pulled me aside, and told me the tape was such a travesty, that he couldn't submit it, and we would have to re-record. Again- something about my pitchy-ness. I think when I started crying, and we had to record the entire tape through my tears, he felt bad. When I told Joyce what happened, she was righteously indignant on my behalf, because she had recorded the first tape with me, and she felt like he was undermining her teaching. But I think (hope) he felt even worse when I was crowned 1st chair 2nd soprano in all of SE Alaska, because I noticed after that moment, he didn't fuck with me anymore. No more talk of me not being able to hold pitch. He tried to be like- "aren't you glad we re-recorded?" But Joyce and I have a theory that he actually sent in the first tape, because in the second one, I was literally snotting and snuffling my way through it. It was as if those judges- those outside, expert opinions on MY singing had completely transformed his opinion about me.
So he left me alone for the rest of high school, and I wasn't scared of him anymore, and I got to sing solos, and have a nice part in the high school musical, and everything was good. But WHY did it even have to start out like that? Why was it necessary for me, as a woman (a girl of 14, really,) to have to prove myself to some man, in a position of authority over me, in order to gain his respect?
The most important thing the voice lessons did were- they unlocked my voice, and gave it the freedom to soar again. Would I still make comparisons as I entered college and became a vocal performance major? Absolutely. Would abusive teachers I had yet to meet and negative experiences I had yet to have going to cause it to get locked back up again? Yes. But I had this silly job as a gondolier at the tail end of college and beyond (I hated that job) that saved me, too.
Because as a gondolier at the Venetian- I didn't have a choice. We were out on that water; singing 2-3 arias per gondola, fifteen times a day. That's A LOT of singing. There's no accompaniment, there's no warm-up, there's no resting on days when you're in "bad voice." Now when people are like- "sing something, I want to hear some opera, you singing monkey!" I don't even hesitate, I'm not weird about it- like I used to be. I don't care, I just get back on that boat, mentally. I'll blurt out whatever they want. Because that boat taught me a lot. It didn't matter how you sounded; people thought it was beautiful- so stop being so damn critical of yourself. And it didn't matter if you made a mistake, they couldn't tell. Or if they could; they didn't care, they just wanted someone to sing to them. So share your gift with the world! It doesn't have to be perfect to be great!
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