more thoughts

The rest of that evening last year was the verbal equivalent of snorting cocaine: one of us would say something (express our feelings, relate a story, reminisce), the other would react as if deeply inhaling a drug, and then come down before the next hit. I learned that he had cried on New Year's Day as well, and that I had unconsciously let a furtive "I love you" slip as we were getting off the phone weeks before. The next day, singing love songs at my recital, I finally understood what the words meant.

I am thinking of this because (I really wanted to get that awesome drug simile on paper!) and it's not unlike how I'm thinking of my singing right now. Although it's hard to pin down lessons with my new teacher, her ideas are moving my technique to another level, and proving applicable to other things too.

The idea is that you create volume and richness of tone by turning your focus extremely inward, creating resonance, compression and strength deep within your body, in order for the sound to be focused and concentrated enough to project outwards. So after years of worrying about what my throat was doing, and my mouth and tongue, she has gotten me to think more about my sinuses- where the sound is resonating before being released by my mouth -and the center of my abdomen, where the muscles support the placement of the air. It's a beautiful idea, that by going inward as much as you possibly can, you can project an expression that travels far and is understandable to everyone who hears it.

And that idea can work for your emotional interpretation as well. Singing a song about love and expressing general happiness about it doesn't carry at all. No one will believe you when you sing. But if you make it personal, if you sing that song because there is nothing else in the world you could possibly sing in that moment, because you must tell your story and because the audience must listen, then it is the most truthful moment in the world.

Just like being in love. Yes, I'm saying that singing is like being in love- is that obsessive or what! It wouldn't work if you tried to emulate what you think love/singing should look/sound like. It only works when you go as deep into yourself as you can, trust your gut, fill yourself with focused, beautiful intentions, and allow that to project.

Am I deep or what? ;-)