I was driving down a busy street
here in Portland yesterday and Kiri Te Kanawa was singing Un Bel Di, nearly
lifting up the entire pavement with her voice. I felt like I was driving
through a peaceful tornado.
I realized as I was humming, then singing along, that I have developed some sort of mute button over the years on my voice. It took a rather fierce effort to actually sing out, loudly. Even after sternly talking to myself I still never actually sang fully as I drove along, Kiri powerfully, tenderly sorting memories as the world outside the car windows adjusted itself to our passage.
The loudest I've ever been in my life has been as a child, selling puppets at the Rennaisance Faire in Agoura, California. The faire was our family's livelihood, and making puppets for months and having 6 weekends to sell them all meant doing all we could to get every puppet in the hands of a fairegoer when the faire was open. We did our best. There were 4 of us children and my mother, wandering the faire and hawking our puppets.
Every morning at around 10 am, craftspeople and actors would gather at the tall hill just outside the faire proper and then wind their way down into the faire in a noisy, exhuberant parade. My family would join the parade and hold our puppets up high, calling out our rhymes and patter amidst the chaos. Around 4 pm we'd walk the entire faire in a group, hawking again but this time truly making as much noise and gathering as much attention as we could.
It's the only time in my life I can remember truly being as loud as I can. Controlled, yes, and steering through the tight curves of vocal modulation with an awareness of what losing control means, but so freely loud. I have mostly a knife edge voice that slices through the center of a note, and I remember lifting my chin up and letting that clear sound peal up and out and over the faire. I remember my mother looking over at me and smiling, and I still feel the tingle in my hands as they lost feeling, all the blood available in my body racing to support my voice. Floating up and out over the faire, held by the ribbon of sound pouring from me.
There are few chances to be that loud, that powerful in my life. Studio work is limited to the microphone tolerances and is much more about flexibility and reaction time than power. I've not done live work in years, and even then there's that sensitive mic tolerence level to consider. I did a small Renn Faire a few hours away last year, but it was tiny. I found myself walking with my sister and my son, halfway hawking so as to not blast out the fairegoers. I had fun, but I also had restraint.
So where do I use my voice fully? And do I even know how anymore? So much of what I do is subconscious and a mystery to me. Have I lost my clear, soaring self?
Driving down the street, singing of endurance and hope with Kiri Te, tearing up as the pavement around me tears up and swearing to myself, reassuring myself, that un bel di I'll float again.
I realized as I was humming, then singing along, that I have developed some sort of mute button over the years on my voice. It took a rather fierce effort to actually sing out, loudly. Even after sternly talking to myself I still never actually sang fully as I drove along, Kiri powerfully, tenderly sorting memories as the world outside the car windows adjusted itself to our passage.
The loudest I've ever been in my life has been as a child, selling puppets at the Rennaisance Faire in Agoura, California. The faire was our family's livelihood, and making puppets for months and having 6 weekends to sell them all meant doing all we could to get every puppet in the hands of a fairegoer when the faire was open. We did our best. There were 4 of us children and my mother, wandering the faire and hawking our puppets.
Every morning at around 10 am, craftspeople and actors would gather at the tall hill just outside the faire proper and then wind their way down into the faire in a noisy, exhuberant parade. My family would join the parade and hold our puppets up high, calling out our rhymes and patter amidst the chaos. Around 4 pm we'd walk the entire faire in a group, hawking again but this time truly making as much noise and gathering as much attention as we could.
It's the only time in my life I can remember truly being as loud as I can. Controlled, yes, and steering through the tight curves of vocal modulation with an awareness of what losing control means, but so freely loud. I have mostly a knife edge voice that slices through the center of a note, and I remember lifting my chin up and letting that clear sound peal up and out and over the faire. I remember my mother looking over at me and smiling, and I still feel the tingle in my hands as they lost feeling, all the blood available in my body racing to support my voice. Floating up and out over the faire, held by the ribbon of sound pouring from me.
There are few chances to be that loud, that powerful in my life. Studio work is limited to the microphone tolerances and is much more about flexibility and reaction time than power. I've not done live work in years, and even then there's that sensitive mic tolerence level to consider. I did a small Renn Faire a few hours away last year, but it was tiny. I found myself walking with my sister and my son, halfway hawking so as to not blast out the fairegoers. I had fun, but I also had restraint.
So where do I use my voice fully? And do I even know how anymore? So much of what I do is subconscious and a mystery to me. Have I lost my clear, soaring self?
Driving down the street, singing of endurance and hope with Kiri Te, tearing up as the pavement around me tears up and swearing to myself, reassuring myself, that un bel di I'll float again.
