I used to hit myself in voice lessons.
Freshman year of college. I couldn’t sing a passage that was beyond my vocal ability, and I sounded like a mule dragging an overfilled tobacco sled to the tune of something that might’ve sounded like “Donna non vidi mai” from Manon Lescaut.
I’d sing a wrong note. I’d crack. It’d sound terrible in my head.
And like a reflex, I’d smack my right thigh like a Dickensian cop truncheoning truant orphans.
Richard Cook would sit balletically straight on the piano bench and look at me with wide, concerned eyes.The cogs in his brain must have turned the little bingo decision ball in the “above my pay grade” answer box.
Voice lessons were times when I wanted
✅ the right answers (consistent impressive hight notes, duh)
? the exact prescription for creating the right answers
? better ability than my competition
? approval from my teacher and peers
? stunning vocal ability so that I could then accept myself
? to tear down and eradicate every vocal fault I had and only sound like a perfect star of a singer
?️ to keep my voice contained in a safe manageable place where I could control all the correct, impressive, exact, superior, applause-inciting, approved, and fault-free sounds I would consistently make.
It was a mess in here.(I’m pointing everywhere.) And that shit hurt.
This is why I tell the pedagogy students at the BoCo: singing just happens to be the modality we get to work in to help folks heal.
The way I tried to use singing when I was 18 was music abuse.
Here’s why.
?♂️ Exercise is good for you. When you use exercise to comparing yourself to your treadmill neighbor, it disconnects you from its healthful purpose.If you’re in yoga class thinking, “Damn, I can Trikonasana so much better than that inflexible shaky pants over there,” you may have missed the point.
? Nutritious food is good for you. If you’re eating your kale and pumpkin seed salad with a splash of lemon juice while a seething judgment of the folks going into Dunkin Donuts across the street boils in your liver, you may be injecting more free radicals into your system than the antioxidants in that kale can mitigate.
? Spiritual practice is good for you. But if you’re like, “I’m pretty sure I meditated and prayed longer than all these jokers in this planning meeting this morning,” you may be missing out on some of the soul benefits a gratitude list can offer.
We do the same thing with singing.
We ab- (the Latin root means away) -use it.
We take it away from its natural and healthy purpose and turn it into a means to tell ourselves the story of better-than.
Because of loving teachers, caring friends, artist peers, plus the privilege to be a teacher, I saw examples of how singing can transform you and those who listen.
I learned
? Singing’s an always-moving thing, and the moment you try to pin it down and box it, you’re dealing with past tense.
? So many things can be true about the free ways you can sing. And once you think you have a tool figured out, you’ll find it doesn’t apply to everything you want to use it for.
? A singer can sound flawless, and you can notice that you just don’t care. If singing’s not connected to an open heart and a commitment to be generous, it’s lifeless. And we can tell.
?? Approval and applause feels good, and their effects evaporate like morning fog. You have to find a deeper purpose for making music, one that brings satisfaction to your individual soul and one that makes you proud of the trail of interactions you’ve left behind.
You have to embrace yourself before you can embrace your voice.
Even if you’re making technically stunning sounds, if you don’t have space and compassion for yourself, no amount of virtuosity is going to earn the grace you need for you.
There’s gold in what you call your vocal faults. And when you get curious about them instead of angry at them, they have a lot to teach you.
and
Your voice is all of you.
It creates itself from the very essence of you being alive — your breath. And it has the power to reconnect the broken pieces like golden vocal Kintsugi. (Thanks Kevin Wilson for this illustration.)
If we could see the energy and vibrations surrounding and coming from us, our minds would be blown on a James Webb Telescope discovery level.
While you may not open-palm slap yourself like 18-year-old me did, I invite you to be curious about the ways you might inflict punishment instead of offer understanding.
Singing is a healing path, and when you’re committed to being whole-hearted and walking it, folks who hear you will wake up to the hope that healing is possible for them, too.
Here’s your invite — get in there and heal. (It’s scary, unfamiliar, it hurts, and some of it really sucks, so don’t be alarmed.)
But it’s a life and death situation. There’s only one you, and we need to hear the story only you can sing.
Love much,
Dan