So I'm a singer. Classical singer to be more precise. I've been doing this professionally for the last dozen years or so. I've definitely sold out in some ways. Catholic music and Episcopalian music paid for many things, including my wedding. I've sung some of the worst crap ever written. I've also sung some of the most beautiful sounds ever created. I know this will sound narcissistic, but I really dig the sound of my own voice. I pride myself in that I can sing a lot of different genres from early renaissance to modern rock to opera. I LOVE to put them all together too. Don't get me wrong, my voice and I have our battles. I believe every talented singer has that love/hate relationship. Singing has been more than a job and hobby for me. It's mostly spiritual.
This is coming from someone that is really just understanding what that means. I mean, I think I've always understood it to some extent, but for the last couple of years, I've begun to intellectualize it. Before that, it never occurred to me to want to explain my beliefs because I associated that with religion. I was also raised in a bi-racial home with vastly different religious beliefs. My parents aren't what I would call particularly spiritual and neither of them practice any religion. Although one parent considers himself Jewish and doesn't really believe in practicing with other people. For him it's too private to share. I'm still trying to figure out what the other believes.
For me, singing began as a way to grab attention in a way that not many people around me could. It made me special and it was a way of dealing with loneliness, sadness, anger, frustration, and any other emotion that I wasn't able to sort out in my brain as a child. Our family moved a lot, and singing was a constant where nothing else was. Being fairly extroverted (around familiars) I had child-like delusions of grandeur. I remember my earliest dreams that I remember were of being on stage with my rock band behind me, and what seemed like millions of people all cheering and screaming for me. I was usually dressed in lacey layered 80's style skirts, black leggings, black lacey fingerless gloves, and a denim jacket. I was basically Madonna. Mind you, I think I was around 5 or 6 when I started having these dreams. I would always wake up with a smile on my face and a fresh energy for music-making. Sure, I tried learning how to play instruments too, but it was so separate. So foreign. So not apart of my body.
I also remember dreaming about interviews with late night talk show hosts like Arsenio Hall. But that wasn't a sleeping dream. While lying in bed, I would hear my parents fighting and yelling. Not being able to sleep, I would listen to them for awhile to make sure that they weren't fighting because of something I did, or that there was no threat of divorce. Slowly, my mind would wander, and I was on the couch next to Arsenio (after a well received performance of course.) We would chit-chat for a bit, then he would probe to find the real person deep down inside of me. "How did you get into singing?" I would respond by telling the story of my latest singing accomplishment. At that time, it probably would be a story about getting a 4 bar solo in the Christmas performance with my elementary school choir at the mall.
By the time I got through the massively overblown accomplishment, I would generally fall asleep by then. This was followed up by another grandiose dream.
By the time College rolled around, I hadn't focused on anything else. I was obsessed with singing and continued to receive the praise. But I never listened to music. Didn't really know anything about it. I had a lot of catching up to do. I also needed to figure out why I sing. I have very eclectic tastes. I didn't have the courage to sing anything other than classical even though I wanted to. It just came so easy, and I kept getting better and better at it. I liked the music I was singing, but there was something more that I was experiencing. Something that I didn't hear the other vocal students ever talk about. When a conversation turned to religion, I referred to music as my religion and always left it at that. While I knew this to be true, I couldn't explain it. Luckily, no one ever asked me to. All of my friends were musicians and somehow understood.
Music still remains to be my constant. My one true love. It has held me up in my darkest moments. It has shown me that I am capable of more than I can fathom. It has taught me about life and made me feel safe when I needed to feel safe.
