I sing. I love to sing. I'm in the choir, and I have sung a couple of solos. In spending time with our Music Director working on my voice, my techniques, my strengths and my weaknesses, I find myself frustrated and angry with my seeming inability to get out of my own way. It seems as though as soon as I look at a piece of music, I start choking off my voice. As long as we're working on free-form scales, I don't have a problem. Give me music to work from to do scales, and I'll probably freeze up.
I am a very strong willed person, and I come from very strong willed stock. So, why can't I seem to will myself to get out of my own way? There's a paradox there -- in order to sing freely and lovingly, I must stop analyzing and just sing (i.e., get out of my head), but in order to sing in time with accompaniment, etc., I need to count (i.e., get in my head) -- at least that's how it seems to me right now. So much of my life things have come very easily to me. This is hard. This sucks!
I will keep at it though. There's not a doubt, because I love to sing. What I've begun to think about is how I can rely on God to help me. I want to sing beautifully for God. Yet I need God's strength and freedom so that I can sing. I think God would find that amusing. I'm okay with that. So, maybe, I should start each lesson, each performance with a prayer? Asking for God to come into me and help lift my voice in praise. I'll begin doing that with practices here at home. I'm sure it will help.
I am sure it will help. That's the wonderful aspect to all of this. Why I haven't thought of it before, I'm not sure. Maybe that's part of the reason why I had to go through this lesson today. Who knows! We shall see.
Sing praises to the Lord, your God, who created us and finds joy in our utterances!
No comments:
Post a Comment