26 April 2015

a bit about singing

i was singing along with the radio and got to thinking about singing and my voice and how it's low-ish and how when i'm singing in a group setting like church or whatnot, people will turn around and look, and i seriously don't think it's because i am off-key or anything. i think i have a fairly distinctive singing voice. not to say it's beautiful, not like that. distinctive like authentic and unique.

i can sort of read music, like i can tell if the next note is going to be a step up or a couple or a bunch of steps up. i can guess where it's going and usually hit it on the first try. what i can't always do on the first try is find my place, since i don't sing with the ladies, if there aren't enough men around, i can't find the note i am supposed to be singing. but if there are guys or the song it simply pitched right for me, i can hit it.

so i am an okay singer, and i was driving along thinking about all this and thinking about how my mom was a great singer. she had a talent and had had lessons as a child, and she would sing with community choirs and whatnot. i mean, when she was, you know, on the wagon. i was thinking about my singing and her singing and realised that as great of a singer as she was, she never taught me a single thing about singing. i won't bore you with the details of singing with my mother, but i will say it didn't involve being on the wagon and it didn't involve her teaching me anything.

so, my mind kind of took off down that track a while -- how she didn't teach me a goddamn thing. didn't teach me how to cook or sew, how to sing or play an instrument, didn't teach me how to brush my teeth or my hair. i learned it all by watching people and copying them, making mistakes, enduring ridicule. (there are things a teenage girl should know, in order to avoid ridicule.) okay, it's coming out all dramatic and it wasn't all that dramatic. it was just fucking hard work and sort of lonely.

that being said, i am okay with my voice. in fact, i kind of like it. but, i do wish i knew a bit more about how to use it well.

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