I don't come from a musical family, at all. We didn't sit around a piano during my childhood and bang out old folk songs or pop standards or even Christmas carols. We didn't sing along with Mitch Miller. We didn't write or re-purpose songs in order to Put on a Show in the old barn.... or the living room. That was the childhood of my high school-era neighborhood buddies. I don't recall if anyone else but me (in my family) played a musical instrument, either. I played drums for a brief time during junior and non-junior high school. Ultimately I quit the drums because I had no place to play them quietly, they take up a lot of room, and I "moved on" to other interests. I tend to do that in general, about every 5-10 years. Also, in my high school, playing an instrument meant Marching Band. I... did not enjoy Marching Band. At all. I hate to say it helped kill my interest in playing an instrument, but it did.
On my own I also played harmonica by ear. Not a chromatic harmonica, but the smaller kind that are locked in to a particular key. The reason I played by ear is that, to this day, I cannot read music. Because of playing the drums, I know how long that notes are played and so can decipher the rhythm, but which letter of the alphabet the notes represent? Hand to God, I still have to do the "Every Good Boy Does Fine" mnemonic EVERY. SINGLE. TIME I'm trying to figure out the treble clef notes, and "Good Boys Do Fine Always" for the bass. Also, Apes Can Eat Grapes. (They can!) I can sort of work out the key signatures, but don't even bother trying to explain minor and major keys to me. {whoosh} over my head.
Growing up severely introverted, it did manifest in the stereotypical ways - ie,
extreme shyness - e
specially when it came to anything resembling a public performance. Like, talking to more than two people at a time. To me, that counted as public speaking.
While forced to serve as a Girl Scout Brownie, the green-suited Girl Scouts did things like teach us songs, and then punish anyone not singing loudly enough by pulling her out of the crowd and making her sing it solo. Rather than teach me to sing more loudly in the crowd to avoid the humiliation, it taught me to equate singing... with punishment. A-yup.
It made me hate and fear singing. And that's pretty much the sum of what I remember about Girl Scouts. Well, there's another memory about making puppets out of sack-lunch paper bags, but at least that's not a traumatic memory. Fortunately my mother didn't push the green uniform on me; only the brown hand-me-down. On the other hand, I might have used the green clout to NOT punish the shy ones, but the rest of the time with them wouldn't have been worth it. Plus, they have to sell those cookies {{shudder}}. I'm not shuddering about the cookies themselves. It's just that I'm no salesperson by any stretch of the imagination, even for those things.
But enough GS-bashing. By high school I had somewhat overcome my hatred, but not yet the fear, of singing thanks to the music-lovin' neighborhood family I mentioned earlier. To a sibling, they all had musical talent and would do stuff like erupt into spontaneous jam sessions more than one would expect in the non-musical real world. I don't mean unseen orchestras starting to play, but more organic. Think "Hot Lunch Jam" from
Fame. But thanks to the childhood singing trauma, it was many years before I realized that I actually can carry a tune. Or even want to in the first place. In fact, it was years after getting my driver's license that I even mustered up the courage to sing by myself in my car. Like for many folks, it started with singing along (shh! quietly!) with the radio or tape cassettes (this was back in ancient times. I grew up with 4-tracks but never sang along with them). Then over many years' time I started singing more loudly in the car, and then started murmuring songs at home without the roar of traffic in the background, and so on.
One thing about most of the songs that I liked (and still like!) best is that the leads are guys. I've been an amateur mimic all my life, so I sang along as best as I could in the singer's voice. Some voices were and are easier for me to imitate than others. Since I'm a chick, this meant spending the better part of 30 years pushing my voice into the tenor and - I shall dare to dream! - baritone range. Baritone as in Len Cariou on the
Sweeney Todd soundtrack (Take that, Mitch Miller!). I won't claim to hit his
lowest notes, but I can meet the octave most of the way. It helps that I started with a kinda-sorta deep voice. I stopped correcting people on the phone years ago when they called me "sir." By now, Danny Elfman is where my comfortable range and timber lies.
Over time I've become admittedly proud of being able to hit low notes ({{sigh}}, yes,
for a woman) and have entertained odd notions like being in an all-chick a capella group, as the "bass" singer, of course. I haven't done this because I don't know other singers, let alone ones who want to sing a capella. The downside, if you think it is one, to all this tenor-ing is that I've neglected my alto/soprano voice almost entirely, to the point where most high notes make my voice crack like Peter Brady in puberty, or when not cracking, sound like a falsetto guy. Even songs I enjoy that are sung by altos and/or sopranos, I drop an octave or two when singing along, else the results are... disappointing. There are some exceptions, but not many.
Before I go on, I should mention that another downside to having clammed up, musically, all these years is that I have zero lung power. No "breathe through ze diaphragm!" lessons had I, so you're going to have a really long wait for my power ballad album... and then be disappointed by it.
Now for the modern world. I've been churchin' for a number of years now, starting in Salem, MA and now in California. I never joined the choir at the Salem church because the vast majority of their pieces bored me to tears. The occasionally entertaining tunes weren't enough to maintain interest. Then the choir director announced that one Sunday's musical theme would be
Godspell, and something snapped. After the service, I begged to be allowed to sing "
All For the Best." Yes, begged. But the reason is not as benign as you'd think. It was not that I was filled with the Holy Spirit and was compelled to sing the praises of the Lord, but because of my ego. I didn't think that anyone else but me could do the song justice. It's tied with another for my favorite song. True, it's a duet, but half of it is a
patter song, and I love me some patter songs. Also, it has a whimsical melody and lyrics that are ripe for visual humor. Long story short, the director let me do it, the musical dam was broken, and it was all thanks to my Michael Bay-sized ego. A year later, after practicing in private for a solid year, she let me sing "Gethsemene (All I Want to Say)" from
Jesus Christ Superstar. That was supposed to be sung during Lent, not after Easter, but a surgery prevented me from performing it sooner. Afterwards two people told me that I made them cry; they assured me that it was for "the right reasons" and not because my singing injured them.
I'm churchin' in California now, at a church too tiny to have a full choir, so the music director has to work with whomever is willing to show up for weekly rehearsals. It took me another year or so of screwing my courage to its sticking place, but I've been showing up at rehearsals in the hopes that my fear of singing in front of a live, studio audience will be squashed once and for all. The downside to all this is that the director turned out to be almost entirely uninterested in my tenor and prefers the sweet trill of a lady's alto instead. In which case I can only conclude that he has never actually heard me sing the high notes (qv, my lack of lung power), or would realize what damage they're doing to the service. No secret was made of my preference when I first started; we've been butting heads on this since day one.
Now this shouldn't seem like a big deal here, but here's the... er, deal: the
only outlet I have for singing, other than my car, is during church services. I'm not a great singer. I have no aspirations to soar to new vocal heights or push my vocal cords to their limit or bring people to their knees in tears like I'm
Grizabella from
Cats. I have a stressful job with long hours, and could use something that I can enjoy and will help me relax, but I've also been trying to find some way to serve God and my church other than just sitting in the pew and throwing a monthly pledge into the pie plates. I am not what you would call a friendly person, so door-greeter is right out. The "Life of the Community" segment bores me to tears, so I'd rather not contribute to that. Etc etc. My hope was that I could take a couple of extra hours per week to contribute the tenor melody for a few songs, and
then sit in the pew. Not mangle the alto harmony week... after week... after week.
So, not too long ago I sent a note to the music director that I would no longer be a regular contributor to the music program. This part wasn't in the note, but I'd been trying to be a good sport and see if I couldn't get my inner crybaby to shut up and take one for (God's) team. But, you know, I'm not a very strong person. Outside of work, in my personal life, I cave in pretty easily to adversity. There's a reason people don't talk or write about my inspirational "can do" tales of perseverance, because they don't exist. So the crybaby won, I quit, and went back to singing a quiet tenor in the pews.
Because I'm not a strong person, though, and wanted to give him the chance to discuss things, I arrived for the monthly choir potluck/jam session. Then I had the chance to explain something left out of my email, and unrelated to my singing ability: I don't even LIKE most women's singing voices. Except for rare, rare occasions, and by that I mean specific songs, high voices annoy me. Altos annoy much less so than sopranos, but there you have it. I don't think it's some weird self-misogyny - just the way I've felt for years and years. So really it came down to being told that I must sing out of my range, with a voice I don't even like hearing from
other women.
The upside is that, for that service, I got to sing tenor melody all service long, and it was bliss! The downside is that the director still reserved the "right" to strongly request that I go the alto route again, like if I was the only chick that week or something. So my time with the choir is week-to-week, I'm afraid to say. That makes me sad. The point of all this endless blabbering, and the reason I tried so hard to overcome my fear and hatred of singing, is that I actually
do like singing. Not enough to buy a bunch of video and music-editing software to throw stuff up onto YouTube, though, or wherever kids these days are trying to showcase themselves. Or I suppose if I did, you'd better believe that comments would be disabled!
