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If you’ve ever been to an amateur recital, you’ve had the great joy of watching people sing. It’s especially amazing to watch people who are not professionals, because their whole Self shows up.
It’s not just about the struggle to remember it all: how to hit the notes, how to keep the rhythm, what the lyrics are, how to stand without clenching their fists or swaying their body.
It’s about the struggle to be absolutely vulnerable, and to show up inhabiting a piece of music, a vibrational experience over time, that comes through the body, and is presented like a prayer, a gift, an offering.
I went to a recital recently where one singer had a pretty terrible voice. And she owned that voice! She sang, and she let the music sing through her, and the gift of that openness, to show up to what happened, was astounding.
When you sing, by yourself, or with others, in private or on a stage, it’s a miracle. Long ago when I was in choir, they used to call it praying with the voice, and if you have ever sung, well or badly or somewhere in between, you know this to be true.
It’s not just about the struggle to remember it all: how to hit the notes, how to keep the rhythm, what the lyrics are, how to stand without clenching their fists or swaying their body.
It’s about the struggle to be absolutely vulnerable, and to show up inhabiting a piece of music, a vibrational experience over time, that comes through the body, and is presented like a prayer, a gift, an offering.
I went to a recital recently where one singer had a pretty terrible voice. And she owned that voice! She sang, and she let the music sing through her, and the gift of that openness, to show up to what happened, was astounding.
When you sing, by yourself, or with others, in private or on a stage, it’s a miracle. Long ago when I was in choir, they used to call it praying with the voice, and if you have ever sung, well or badly or somewhere in between, you know this to be true.
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