Vocal Rest
The number of things i have learned by putting myself through this for even just a few days cannot be exaggerated. First on the list is the importance of vocal rest. Part of my motivation for doing this was to add and element of urgency to my hardwired need to practice every day. I felt like i was making excuses every time i pushed through a practice and struggled to get my voice to ring properly, or i woke up already aching in every muscle i knew would be put to work later. The truth is that i’m not really giving my body (or brain) the recovery time it needs to process a lot of what i’m doing. So now i’m torn. Do i practice even though i know i need rest? Do i post even though it’s not as good as i want it to be (and know it can be)? Do i skip a day? Do i record more than one video a day? The latter seems like it defeats the purpose of recording gradual progress, so i’d rather not. It would seem there is no perfect solution. Whose idea was this??
It’s reminding me of my days in school, when there were no days off, as i had neither the patience nor the wisdom to chase sustainability. I would come home from work in the kitchen or production and be so physically exhausted that no matter how hard i pushed for a full and beautiful voice, practicing seemed to only teach my body how to habituate singing with inadequate support. Or in other words, habituate bad singing, rife with tension and completely lacking in consistency. My only option, if I wanted to sing with pitch accuracy and any semblance of control was to sing very lightly while slowly working my way down to bring in a mixed tone. The hope being to slowly strengthen my speaking voice over time (which would always break, even when talking). So in school that’s what i did. I did very little training with my chest voice and only worked with my mixed voice to the extent that i absolutely needed to in order to be heard.
As a dramatic soprano, i was somewhat able to get away with it though that did little for how incomplete and inadequate i felt as a musician. My understanding of how awful i sounded nearly every time i pushed for more than a very light tone, compared to what my inner child knew i was fully capable of never failed to rob me of all confidence, which of course only made things worse. It severely impaired my ability to perform. It didn’t matter how well prepared i was or how well i knew the song. In the deeper abyss of my mind i knew my body wasn’t yet capable of delivering what i needed it to. Every day i am increasingly amazed at what my vocal coach was able to help me do me in spite of the emotional obstacles i had built for myself.
It has been a blessing and a curse to have a voice so intimately connected with my emotional mind. Starting this project, i knew it would be hard. Though i have never given up on the idea that if i work efficiently and effectively enough, pace myself and build my life’s physical work around taking care of a singer’s body, i can sound good and reach a comfortable place with my voice every day. So i guess now i have answered my own question. There is no stopping, only trying and learning. When and if i do reach the point where all that comes out is awful, i suppose there won’t be a video that day. Though i will still have practiced as if there was and i will keep posting until I’ve done it 100 times. Which i now realize is all that matters to me — putting the work in every day.