June 28, 2001
Musically Inclined
Hee. Normally I'd put this in the blog, but this is a conversation I just had:
Cinderella sings at the top of her lungs, "No cares for YOU a SMIDGE, when you're in an ORPHanage! It's a hard knock life!"
Magnus says "Are you doing this at work?"
Cinderella is doing this in her heart, yes. ;)
I'm notorious for posting the lyrics of whatever I'm currently listening to. Songs get into my head and get stuck there, often for days or weeks or even years at a time. You think I'm kidding? I'm not. For years now, my default cheerful humming tune is a snippet of Ralph Vaughn Williams' "For All the Saints", which I sang in choir back in my first trip through college. I've tried to stop. I've tried. But sure enough, I'll be walking along, and find myself humming "For all the saints who from their labors rest..."
When I worked in day care, I learned that several choir songs, particularly medieval pieces, make wonderful lullabies. Note to new parents: "Now Would I Fain", a medieval bit, fits perfectly to the rhythm of a rocking chair. Particularly a tired, frustrated "please just to go sleep already!" rocking chair rhythm.
I sing all the time. Even when I'm not singing, I've probably got music in my head, or I'm listening to something. That, if anything, has been the big drawback of listening to audiobooks in the car. When I lived alone, I often sang at the top of my lungs, anything and everything that I was listening to. Once I moved in with my parents again, I wasn't able to do that, and I missed it. I've spent many many hours sitting in front of my computer singing along to my MP3s and typing online. Sitting silently in front of the computer is still odd-feeling. So instead, I sang in the car. It's true. You know that lady you always see when you're stuck in traffic, the one with her head either moving to the beat or tilted to hit a high note, who really gets into whatever she's singing, complete with the scrunched facial expression? That's me. Or that was me, until I started listening to audiobooks.
Sometimes I desperately miss being formally involved in music, but really, music has never ever stopped being a part of my life. Growing up in a church that strongly emphasized congregational singing (no evil organs or pianos, oh no!), spending about eight years in school choirs, on top of about six years' worth of voice lessons and singing informally every chance I got -- I never really had a chance to escape, I guess. One of my earliest memories, when I was about four or five, is of teaching a song I "wrote" to my imaginary friend Jeff. I also have memories of "writing" a country song when I was about eight or nine. That one I went so far as to try and write it down, but I didn't have much in the way of music notation or theory knowledge. It was... bad. Even for country. I didn't mention a dog or a job, but I think my story did have someone leaving someone else in a pickup truck.
For a while, after I dropped the idea of getting a music degree, I worried that
I was wasting my potential and my talent by not doing so. After all, I told
myself, one voice teacher once told me that I had the potential to sing at the
Met, and several remarked on my voice. Wouldn't I be wasting that? Then I
stopped to realize how much I hate
practicing
. It frustrates me. I stopped to realize how, as much as I like the idea of
performing, singing in front of people usually leaves me terrified. Enough so
that I don't want to do it as a career, much less as a career where a good part
of my time early on would be spent getting rejected. After I thought about
that, I thought about how much I adore just casual singing, and how much
happiness it gives me to drive along (or sit in front of the computer) singing
my heart out. A waste? Not at all. That was my first lesson in "You Don't Have
to Make A Career Out of Something to Cherish Doing It".
Posted by Lisa at June 28, 2001 01:17 PM
