A dear friend of mind has a particular gift. He’s long been acclaimed as being the sort of singing voice that comes along less than once in a generation. His renditions of some of the songs he sang in Broadway shows are recognized as the defining recordings of those songs.
He doesn’t sing as much as he used to. He’s mostly devoted to passing on to other singers the excellent technique that he learned when he was young, and that enabled him to keep his unbelievable tone and range long past the time most singers’ voices are just a ghost of the voice they’d been.
I mention him because, for most of the forty years we’ve been friends, I wouldn’t sing in front of him because I was sure my voice wouldn’t “measure up.” Just to be clear, he was never anything but supportive of my singing voice; it was I who was doing the judging, but it kept me from really singing in front of anyone else, too. Sure, I’d sing, but it was always with my voice held in because I thought I was protecting myself. I refer to it now as a “strangled gargle.”
I didn’t realize what I was actually protecting myself from. It was the sound of my own voice, with nothing held back, something I discovered late in life was a source of unbelievable joy for me. I kept it from myself and from everyone else for almost seventy years.
Speaking in public is always cited as the greatest fear, but it doesn’t hold a candle to singing in public.
For years, my coaching practice was focused on helping people overcome their fear of public speaking. I could speak in front of hundreds, or thousands, and when I was an actor, I could act in front of live audiences, or television audiences, but ask me to sing? My knees turned to jelly.
So, early in the Pandemic, when I was getting used to spending most of my time at home and seeing very few humans but my wife, I decided that it was time to get over that fear. I created something called Songshare. Once a week, a group of us get together on Zoom, and we sing to one another, a cappella, one at a time. There’s nothing to focus on but the person singing. It’s a wonderful group of people who rotate in and out, as their Saturday afternoon schedules permit. We’re very supportive of one another.
If Songshare had a motto, it would be when one of us is singing, all of us are singing.
Over time, and like a lot of us in the group, I held back less and less. What I discovered was a voice I never would have dreamed I had. I don’t have a spectacular voice, but then neither do a great number of really wonderful singers. What they do have is a complete willingness to let the life that wants to come through them, come through, without censoring, without filtering, and especially, without judging. That’s the secret of the sort of singers like Lois Armstrong, Bob Dylan, or Willy Nelson who don’t necessarily have beautiful voices. The sheer aliveness that comes through them makes them compelling singers.
After Songshare had been up and running for a few months, I was judging my voice less and less, and something miraculous Happened. The voice that came out of my mouth sounded like a stranger who at the same time, was completely familiar to me. I discovered I had more than half an octave at the top of my range that nobody had ever heard, because I’d never heard it. I was able to sing songs I’d never dreamed of singing.
Each time I sang up in that range, I’d laugh when I got done, and wonder, sometimes out loud, “Was that voice coming from me?”
It’s the closest I’ll ever come to flying, and it’s close enough for me. It all happened for one simple reason. I stopped judging my own singing voice, and as a consequence, I started to soar. There was nothing to “measure up to,” there was only something to be expressed. For seventy years, I held my full voice in because I didn’t know I could sing without judging myself. When I finally opened my wings, I discovered I could fly.
My guess is that, like me, you probably have some part of yourself, some gift or ability you’ve hesitated to give “full voice.”
What do you suppose might happen if you set aside whatever judgment you have about it, however real that judgment seems? You can wait seventy years, the way I did, or you can take the chance to let the life that wants to come through, come through, and feel like you’re flying.
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