Singing - revisited

Funny thing. I just got up about 2o minutes ago and went to my piano. I took out some Brahms songs and some Strauss songs. Songs I haven't sung in years. First I attempted to pluck through the accompaniments on the piano and then I started singing. I sang through about five songs. That's when I realized. I'm not sick of singing. I love to sing. Maybe I'm just not so crazy about the pursuit of singing as a career. Maybe, on some level, I've never really wanted the career and it's just taken me all these years to separate the two things. Which begs a pretty interesting question. Now what?

Well, for starters, it's interesting to note that because I have a huge voice, everyone always wanted to hear me sing arias. Big, honking, impressive arias. And so, I haven't really spent long periods of time singing some of these beautiful art songs. The other thing I'm starting to learn about myself is that I love the music more than I love the singing. I love to make music. When I'm singing those big ole honking arias, sometimes the music gets lost because it's kind like gymnastics for the voice. These songs are little complex works of art. I started with Brahm's "Wie melodien" and worked my way into Strauss' "Allerseelen". These are songs where the piano is singing a duet with the singer. They are equal partners in creating a complete picture. I happen to love Duparc for this very same reason. You can swim in the harmony and your voice can ebb and flow with it. This is the stuff I really do enjoy singing. And yet, I haven't done very much of it.

I find it fascinating that it's taken me so many years to have a cohesive idea of what I really love about this art form. My ego was being stroked for so long. I had the "powerful, big, high, easy, florid" voice. Of course, I was born to be a huge, huge opera star. And that was the message my ego has spent years being fattened up on. Yet this huge career never evinced itself. I think, in part, due to the many mixed messages I was receiving but, in hindsight, also because of the many mixed messages I was likely giving out. I didn't really love most of what I was singing. I loved doing the tricks and getting the applause. But when I sit down to console my soul, it's these songs I tend to pull off the shelves. These songs and the Obradors and Nin-Culmell and Rodrigo. Montsalvage, Barber, Schubert, Donaudi. These self-contained treasures which I've used as warm ups and workouts to prepare for my "real" music. It's these songs that give me the most pleasure. So maybe I need to sing them more and maybe I need to sing what I love simply because I love to sing it. And for me, this will be enough.

I simply won't continue to chase the career just because many years ago someone said I should.