Technically speaking, this is not “new” news. We have music going pretty much every evening as a backdrop to unwinding and getting ready for/eating dinner.
What’s new is a return to music in a way I haven’t for years, over a decade at least. One of my D&D friends and I were chatting about songs from movies/musicals that could apply to our group, and it got him thinking about writing parody lyrics and recording them. This, in turn, got me thinking about writing parody lyrics to a different song, which I did. And then thinking about recording them, which stopped me in my tracks.
A little background. I was a choir kid in high school. That was my thing. My junior year, I auditioned for and got into the district and all-state choirs, and I scored high enough on my states audition to qualify for All Eastern. For one shining weekend in 2007, I was one of the top high-school choral singers in the northeastern part of the country. It was an experience I’ll never forget and cherish always.
Then, as happens, I graduated, which took me away from having choir baked into my daily course schedule. I joined my college choir, which met once a week and was just not at the same level. I’d gone from daily practice, concerts all over the place, competitions, and community events to prepping for two Christmas shows from September to December. I figured, though, this was reality. I’d chosen not to go to school for music, after all.
College ended and took my singing outlet with it. I moved, started grad school, sang for fun here and there, and moved on to a new ear of life. I knew if I didn’t keep it up, my high notes would suffer, but it just wasn’t on my radar so much compared to finishing school, working, and such.
Fast-forward until this past week. Other than humming along to stuff, I hadn’t sang in at least ten years, and certainly not for other people to listen to with any degree of attention. When my friend and I had this discussion, it was a fun joke at first. Yeah, I love writing alternative lyrics and parodies. Why not?
But record it? No, I couldn’t.
Except, why not? It didn’t require anything overly strenuous. I could sing the song. I have a decent microphone setup. There was nothing to stop me, really.
And suddenly, I wanted nothing more.
So, I did it. It’s not my best work ever. But it’s not bad by any stretch.
And it felt amazing.
So freaking amazing.
Ten years ago, I would have shoved those feelings into a box, admonished myself that “if you wanted to sing, you should have gone to school for music,” and stayed away from recording anything else so I didn’t have to deal with the craving to use my voice as the instrument I know it can be.
Last week? I recorded a song, realized I missed singing deep in my soul, and looked up vocal warmup videos on YouTube to start getting my muscles back into shape.
But most importantly, I didn’t put any pressure on myself over it.
Would I like to join a choir again? At some point, maybe. I’d like to get my skill and confidence back to a better level first. Even if I don’t join a choir, though, I intend to set aside 10-15 minutes a day to do this thing I love simply for the love of it. It doesn’t need to be a career. At the same time, not everything I do in the course of my week needs to go toward something that will further my business or my work. I can have ten minutes a day for me. (Honestly, let’s face it, I probably would have used those ten minutes to do something pointless like mindlessly scroll, so this is an improvement.)
And speaking of improvement, I’m already seeing it. My muscles know what to do. They just need a reminder. And the fact they’re already figuring it out is so encouraging.
My message today, folks, is it’s okay to do things for yourself. Of course, life comes with responsibilities, and those things are important. But having responsibilities is not synonymous with only ever doing things to fulfill those responsibilities to the detriment of everything else in your life. Even if it’s twenty minutes once a week to work on finishing a piece of art, making a fancy dinner once a month because you love to experiment in the kitchen, or taking ten minutes a day to get off social media and sing vocal warmups, you deserve that time. You are allowed to have that time doing that thing for you.
And don’t ever let your inner critic (or anyone else) tell you otherwise.
👋 Fair travels,
Mary
P.S. A big thanks to ulleo from pixabay.com for the image.
