humility

now playing on my sound system is a recording of myself last week singing a song at church. i haven't listened to a recording of myself in a long time. i can't decide how i feel about this one.

i had already written nearly an entire post about the experience of singing this song and now that i know what it sounded like i have to finish it by beginning with a disclaimer and ending with criticism.

the mistakes in intonation and my unsupported tone at the beginning frustrate me enough that i am in a way unable to hear whether or not the next verses are good. then i recall that i was trying not to cry, and i can forgive myself somewhat.

you see, here's the setup. the pastor had just announced that bad things were happening to people at our church. it was something especially heartbreaking to specific members of the congregation, including the singer next to me, who began to sob aloud.

i had several moments before i was to start singing our song for communion. then, me. my turn. my turn to be the sole voice echoing throughout the gymnasium. no pressure. no fair.

i had previously decided not to allow myself to feel the meaning of what i was singing. i had meditated on the lyrics’ significance for a while already, and i knew it’d make me cry upon actual solo rendition, with real accompaniment (dulcimer and guitar). now with this extra bit of emotional stress, it took a little more effort to unfocus that most sensitive part of my brain and look straight ahead at the music in such a way that i would only see the words on the page, black on white, simple, plain, to transliterate them directly into notes and sounds. do not consider. do not pass “go”. do not collect $200.

as i started i did notice a few spots of shoddy intonation, difficult to fix without better ventral support. my mic was turned up so darn hot that i couldn’t support like i wanted to or it would distort. i hate it when they're like that. in a few places my voiced scratched a little, also because of lack of support and trying not to cry. so i went into lullaby mode after a few lines. you know, not real singing, kinda like, well, where you make your vocal cords as slack as possible and go all airy and then you need to have the mic right up to your face. i focused hard on the aesthetic itself, making each tone as pretty (pretty isn’t usually my thing) as possible, embellishing only with a few refined vowel shapings and consonant variations. nooooo, no rubato or mordents or any of that junk. i’m a purist. certain melodies are most powerful in their purest form. calm tempo, gently pulsing rhythm. shape the lines into the sentences you see before you. make it float. make those lines hover in the air to shimmer as long as possible before dissipating.

it’s okay to do that every once in a while, disconnect like that. i was consciously thinking about how the congregation is blessed, that God blesses them through the pure elements of the lyrics and the notes themselves, so for this time i wanted to focus on those things.

listening now to this unforgiving recording i want to forget that i thought it went that well. it's fine; i can hear that it went just fine. but only fine.

i usually listen to myself to try to see how i can improve. i'm somewhat disappointed at this because i guess i thought i'd improved more than i have. and this time i can't figure out what to do differently (since it felt good at the time) besides hold the mic further away from my face and go ahead and support more for the sake of tone and intonation. forget about those consonant variations; they sound cheesy and forced. oh and don't pay attention to people crying around me. i know deep down that that's not going to fix the real issue. the real issue is that i'm just not really THAT good. i say this with all objectivity and neutrality of emotion, not in a self-deprecating or depressed way.

i prefer the opposite of what just happened. i prefer to think that i am not as good i really am. that way reality is a pleasant surprise. ah, humility. something else i need to practice. i suppose this most recent exercise counts?