Even before I knew I wanted to be a singer (I was 4 years old when I first saw Barbra Streisand on tv and thought: “I want to do that!”), I sang. All children sing. We sing ourselves to sleep so we won’t feel alone in our bed, afraid in the dark. We sing silly songs and play hand-clapping games and jump rope rhymes. We sing in groups in church or school. We sing along with the radio, unconsciously hum while we work, or whistle the theme song from that commercial stuck in our head.
I was unaware as a child that I was always singing, or whistling, or beating my foot to the music I heard in my mind constantly. But I realize now that the music I was making was simply the manifestation of whatever I was feeling at the time – out loud, with melody, and some sort of soothing, repetitive rhythm.
It just felt good.
When I began to really LISTEN to music, at a very young age, it was as if I were drinking in my feelings…that the music somehow knew everything I felt or thought and was out there, and it wasn’t until I heard Bach or Judy Garland or Joni Mitchell or Faure that I became aware that they were just like me, they knew exactly how I felt; Music understood the human condition and entered us to help heal our fear, the loneliness, the searching. Of course, I wasn’t able to verbalize all of this at the time…all I knew was that Music was a magnet and I couldn’t stop listening…or singing.
These thoughts occur today because I have Phoebe Washer, and especially her family, so much in my heart and on my mind, making it hard to concentrate on my ‘day’ job. And my daughter is sad and upset and finding it hard to talk about it with me. What I really feel like doing is singing.
So I decided to schedule some time in the studio today to continue recording my CD rather than working. Tap into the instrumental tracks we recorded, and extract the joy that lives there, and give it back through my voice. I don’t know how or what it will feel like but I know the process, becoming engrossed in it, will give me something back. It always does. Then, I can put those feelings into the Song and send that song out into the world for the future person who may want to hear it…listening to Music that might help them feel better for a while.
