In my previous post on this blog I shared with you the amazing
journey to my recording ‘Just This Once’. However, what I didn’t share was the
extreme difficulty I had in that journey. It was not an easy path for me
emotionally and there were a lot of hurdles to overcome.
When I first found out that my relatives had generously
donated money to pay for me to have a day in the recording studio I was stunned
and greatly excited. However, those feelings were quickly replaced with extreme
anxiety. As I thought about the fact that they had all put so much money into
this I felt a huge amount of pressure that my singing on the album had to be good or I would let them all
down. Fortunately my sister spoke with me within 24 hours of these thoughts
beginning and reassured me that that was the
last thing that my relatives would want. She told me that everyone wanted
me to thoroughly enjoy the experience.
In my year of jamming with my pianist, long before the
recording prospect even came on the scene, I had battled greatly with
insecurity about my voice. Andrew (my pianist) had given me a microphone so
that I could record myself and hear “how amazing I was sounding”. However when
I recorded myself and listened to it I thought I sounded not just bad, but
absolutely horrendous! This was when
I realised that, even though I had thought I had long overcome it, my inner
perfectionist was still alive and well.
It got to the point where it ended up not being constructive
in any way and so I stopped recording myself. Because of my perception of how I
sounded I became extremely anxious about people, other than my parents and
immediate family, hearing me sing.
Even though our house is quite large, if I had planned to
spend time working on my singing, I wouldn’t do so if there were other people
at our place. Even if it was at the far end of the house, I didn’t want to even
risk being heard.
During the summer, in the months leading up to the recording,
when it was very hot I would shut all my windows so that none of our neighbours
could hear me. Luckily I have an air conditioning unit in my bedroom so I was
able to keep cool at the same time.
I am incredibly grateful that I had a wonderful and very open
friendship with Andrew and I was able to tell him how I was feeling. I told him
how when he first came to jam with me in 2011 what had touched me the most was
his being very positive about my voice at the end of the jam session on his way
to the car. It had stunned me that he said that and it gave me enough confidence
to keep at my singing. After telling him how I had felt he said to me that he
had studied jazz for 5 years and knew a good voice when he heard one. This
helped build up my confidence that this was worth pursuing.
However, the insecurity that I felt about my voice was
something that travelled with me right through to the recording of our album. What
was amazing was that every time I got on with singing I was always freed from
it. It was always just a matter of getting over the hurdle of my perception of
my voice and letting loose. Once I got going I would become so focused on the
music, the lyrics, the timing etc., that all that would take over my mind. Also
the sheer joy of each occasion would consume me.
On the day of our recording I was completely free from any
insecurity. Even though it was the first time I had sung with anyone else other
than Andrew, I felt so incredibly free. I was so excited, which was utterly liberating.
I had also been very anxious as to how I would physically cope with the
recording, as I find standing long very painful, but I was able to cope with it
on the day of the recording.
When I eventually received the finished tracks of our album from
the producer, I was so incredibly
excited. It was finished and I was so thrilled with how it all sounded, even
how I sounded. However, after listening to the album for a couple of weeks it
got to the point where I couldn’t listen to it on my own any more as intense critical
analysis of my voice would take over. The perfectionist within me was once
again running riot. By the time my album release party (about a month later)
came around I was once again really anxious about people hearing me sing.
What if they heard the imperfections that I could hear? What
if I actually sounded terrible and everyone had just been nice in saying that I
had a great voice? What if I was going to publicly humiliate myself? I had
absolutely loved my recording experience, but this was different, there was
going to be an audience there.
One thing that I found recurring reassurance in during the journey
to recording ‘Just This Once’ and our album release party was the fact that
Andrew would give me such encouragement every time we jammed. I knew he was
well trained in jazz and had worked amongst professional jazz singers and so I
had confidence in what he was saying. It was also greatly reassuring to know
that Andrew would be there at the recording, and later at our two album release
parties. Just knowing that someone who knew my voice and knew me was going to
be by my side was so incredibly reassuring. I joked with him that he was my
security blanket.
Now that Andrew is living and studying in Sydney, I am entering
the next phase in my journey with singing. This is working with other
professional musicians. Even though a part of me does still feel some mild apprehension
about this, the whole journey through to my recording and the sheer joy of the release
parties that followed has instilled in me a confidence that I hope will carry
me through.
If you are interested in listening to ‘Just This Once’ you
can do so with the two tracks that are on YouTube from the album. They are ‘Paper Moon’ – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoUQS5_ARDw
and ‘The
Boy From Ipanema’ - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trQU9aaA7oE.
The full album is also available in full on iTunes.
No comments:
Post a Comment