Singing

“The whole basis of my singing is feeling. Unless I feel something, I can’t sing.” 

Billie Holiday

When I was five my mom started me in piano lessons. Two days a week I would take my music book, cross the crabgrass in our front yard and knock on Mrs. Montgomery’s door. After I got settled and opened my book, she said, “Let’s hear you play “This Old Man.” My chubby, child fingers plucked out the notes first the right hand and then the left. Not long after I started lessons, my parents bought me my very own Cable Nelson piano. We crammed it into our small dining room where we lived on Alverado Way in Decatur, Georgia along with the lazy Susan table and console record player.

I took lessons for six years and learned how to read music. Then my parents divorced. My mom moved my piano from our dining room into an apartment on the other side of town. I never saw Mrs. Montgomery again.  I played the same songs over and over, songs that my mom liked to hear.  Her favorites were The Shadow of Your Smile, Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata and Strangers in the Night with a picture of Frank Sinatra on the cover of the sheet music.  I remember singing then. At a young age I began to hold back unless I was by myself because my singing was really bad. I don’t have a voice, I thought. I also remember other people saying that to me.

After decades of alienating myself from singing, along comes my grand-daughter. Seven-year-old Brielle sings softly to herself all of the time. She sings in the back seat while I drive her to school. She sings while doing arts and crafts.  She literally follows her own tune as a way of life. I watch and listen to her so free and open, so inspired by her own melodies. She feels something inside of her. She also told me the other day that when something upsets her, she sings and then she feels better.  I wondered, can I again be curious like a child and experience my own singing not caring if it’s good or bad? How would singing light up my life and connect me to feelings like Brielle?

My heart pounds in my ears as I drive to my first ever singing lesson at the age of 71. Stepping out of the car towards the house I’m welcomed by bright orange pumpkins, Alysha Antonino and her cats. After my nerves calmed by our conversation, it was time to begin.

Sitting at the piano Alysha took me through some exercises that helped show me how to feel the vibration of my voice inside my head for higher notes then through my chest into my heart for lower. We practiced breathing to strengthen my diaphragm. She used terms like this is your “bridge” which I didn’t completely understand but knew I would one day soon.  I watched as she held her hands on the sides of her cheeks and trilled through her pursed lips. “I use this exercise to get my voice ready before I perform,” she told me.  She demonstrated how to be aware of my facial muscles in order to create voice vowels in a song. She explained, “Like Adele when she sings into the deeeeeeeeeeep.”  Could I some day sing Adele songs and use these skills to get better at how to control and use my voice like her???!!!!  

As I followed along and sang, I sensed a letting go. I realized that my body and soul don’t judge me as good or bad, right or wrong.

With my intention for practice and having someone that I will be with every week that loves singing, my confidence met the warm, October afternoon as I got back in my car and drove down the freeway. On the journey home I pursed my lips, trilled and began singing one of the songs I selected to practice with my teacher.

“Morning has broken like the first morning, blackbird has spoken like the first bird. Praise for the singing.” Cat Stevens