Music To My Ears

Music is something that I’ve always been passionate about. From as early as I can remember I’ve been surrounded by the music that my parents played. Road trips consisted of my mother listening to my father and I sing as we went where ever it was we were going, to whatever tape Dad had put in.
I always took great joy in the choir section of my elementary school years, when everyone else dreaded it. In fourth grade when we were suppose to chose either choir, band, or orchestra I was one of two girls that sat out for choir when the rest of the school opted for instruments. That forced the school to make choir mandatory anyway. Thinking back I remember how big a step that was for me. Every other kid was so excited to start learning an instrument and even at that age, a child tends to go with the group for the sake of shaky friendships or to avoid being teased. Even when the girl I really didn’t like moved to sit out for choir I still knew that singing was all I really wanted to do. Up I stood and went to the bench area to wait out the rest of the kids.
Since then it’s been a no brain-er. When I was in sixth grade I attended the parent night in preparation for going to Junior High. As they explained to the parents how important it was that the kids picked electives that they would enjoy, the idea of not taking choir for the sake of something new like art was too strange. I knew what I wanted.
In time it became my little moment of sanity. High school was a tough world to get through and choir was my moment to express myself and lose a little stress for an hour. By my senior year I was in two different contest choirs and traveling with both of them ended up being an enlightening experience. When I went off to college I finally gave up choir. I knew that I would have to concentrate on my degree and I couldn’t afford the private lessons that were required as a part of the whole curriculum.
Singing along to the radio is something most people are too embarrassed to do in front of other people. To me that is just the way life works. Doesn’t matter who’s in the car with me, most of the time I do it out of sheer automatic; I don’t even know I’m doing it unless the other person brings it up.
Now I’ve never considered myself to have any sort of real raw talent. I enjoy singing and I do it for that reason alone. I was never the soloist type, even though I received a superior rating the one and only time I was brave enough to compete in Solo/Ensemble Contest. What I was best known for was the strength of my voice, I added depth to the rest of the choir. All my skills have been by my own ear since reading music never came easily to me. I know when something is off. My DJ friend use to ask my opinion on the sound system before the crowds would show up at night. We’d make walk-through’s on the different club dance floors he worked at in order to check speaker direction and sound quality. I always took that as a real compliment.
Once I started clubbing my appreciation of music and sound really became focused on both my expression through dance and all the things a DJ has to consider when spinning from song to song. That’s not to say that I stopped singing. When a really great vocal comes on and I know the words, I am dancing and singing my heart out. But it’s really been a while since I spent some time with people who create music as oppose to those that merely play with it on turntables.
Hanging out with two guy friends of mine, there was just something so cool about sitting around listening to them play music and sing. In college I had lived with my best friend and her boyfriend who was a very excellent bass player. There’s always been something hot about a guy who can play guitar or bass to me. Heck even my first boyfriend got my all shivery because he could play the first minute or so of Clapton’s “Tears in Heaven” on his little pawnshop guitar.
That night it was the ultimate in just kicking back and being musical. We sat around in the living room and drank beer. Trading the guitar back and forth they both either sang or played, learning from each other or just messing around with chords. At one point the I-pod got dug out so I could listen to the acoustic version of a song they had been playing; a Dave Mathews song I’d never heard before.
I remember just sitting there and being jealous that they could just pick up an instrument and play. It’s a freedom of musical expression that singers don’t really get. Even though I did it as a child, you can’t really just sit somewhere randomly and just start belting out something. There was many a night I’d barricade myself into my room and sing with Sarah Brightman and the score of Phantom of the Opera, a total obsession of mine. I’d use her superior example to train myself in a self-educated private voice lesson. All her breathing and pronunciation I would soak up and do my best to take beyond the fact of copying, but to next level of ingrained technique. It wasn’t about sounding exactly like Sarah Brightman, but to produce sound at the same level of professional quality.
When they finally played a song I knew I had no trouble just opening my mouth and singing along. It’s funny that I still do my best to blend and adjust myself to who ever else I’m singing with. Choir really brainwashes you to the point where I’m not sure how the heck we had so many soloists that would drive me crazy. That’s what I like to call the Diva Complex, which applies to singers and instrument players. They always play louder and more eccentric than the rest in order to stand out and be noticed. They make a solo out of what should be a group sound.
As I sang along to this song that I hadn’t heard on the radio since high school it occurred to me that it had been forever since I’d really sang out loud to something that wasn’t the radio or a CD. It felt incredibly good. It also felt like being connected back up to a part of my life I had kind of given up for dead. Everything I really loved doing sort of got put under the neat little title of “hobby” when I went off to college. I wasn’t going to have the time or the money to make anything out of those childhood dreams. Hanging out with people who understood how I feel about music and who I consider to be very talented was a really great.
Even though the night sort of fell apart as the beer took over and made me pretty darn silly and sleepy, the over all feeling remained of it having been an awesome night. If they ever ask me to come hang again I will be all over it.