Day 28 of 365 - The Joy of Singing - Part 3

At my group singing class this week (described in a previous post) my teacher told me that she felt that I had another breakthrough song.  This was a bit of a surprise to me as the singer, because I did not feel like I had made major gains with the song I chose.  She, however, was speaking from her perspective as both teacher and listener.  It was more about how the song was conveyed, which she felt was authentically me.  This is a very sweet compliment to receive indeed.

When I think back to my previous post about what really nourishes me and you, in relation to this form of expression we call singing, it strikes me that being authentically heard is very potent.  When we are able to connect deeply with a song's meaning for us personally, along with using our vocal techniques, we communicate clearly to our audience.

This is not about belting a song loudly, even though that may be fun to do sometimes.  It's about finding just the right balance of resonance so that the song is sung from your whole body, your whole self, not just from the neck up.  That is when your audience feels what you are communicating.

To quote from the introduction of Jocelyn Rasmussen's book, Meant To Be Heard, "Every sound the voice makes is composed of multiple frequencies that communicate information about how one is feeling physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually."  And, "The quality of the voice, determined by multiple frequencies in the tonal structure, registers in sound receptors in every cell of the listener's skin;  it vibrates their skeletal system and infiltrates their organs and glands."  (Jocelyn is my singing teacher, mentioned in the other posts.)

The song I had chosen to sing was Tapestry by Carole King.  It was sort of a coming of age song for me, as that album came out the year I turned seventeen, when I was finishing high school and about to head off to university.  It always had a magical feel to me, a sense of potential, though I had never honestly spent much time thinking more deeply about the meaning.  I just liked it a lot.

I brought this song back to class three times.  After the first time, Jocelyn challenged me to find the meaning of the song, as I was singing it in a rote way.  After searching online without satisfaction for the meaning of the lyrics, I decided to get Carole King's memoir out of the library.  Reading about her life gave me a much better sense of what life experiences may have contributed to that song.

Then, I needed to think more about what the song means to me, now, at this point of my life as a senior rather than that of a teenager on the cusp of her future.  Yes, quite a difference.  And, doing that contemplation changed my performance of the song.  So, even though it was not a particularly challenging song for me to sing in terms of range, I could discover my different means of expression through it from class to class thanks to the feedback of my teacher.

I've only had one other breakthrough song in the few years I've been going to classes, so it's a significant marker to me.  That does not mean I haven't made gains with other songs I've chosen.  It's just an example of a time when all those frequencies mentioned above have aligned in dynamic balance.  Now that I've had that experience again, I can remember what it feels like and bring it forward into other songs.  And that to me is sweet.