my apologies
as a few of you know, i had a tiny freak out moment early today (okay, maybe it wasn’t so tiny, but at least it only lasted an hour or so, instead of a few days). in the past, i’ve remarked on how much a singer is attached to her voice, because it is such an integral part not only of what we do, but who we are. therefore, singing is especially personal.
sometimes, reviewing my voice becomes a touchy subject. for the most part, i am very happy with the progress i’ve made, but i have my moments where i can be very self-depricating, and for that i apologize. for today, and for any other day i’ve done it. i apologize for all the days i’ve shrugged off a postive comment on a performance, saying “well, this could have been better” or “it wasn’t like the way i did it in my lesson”. who gives a piss how it could have been or how i’ve done it in the past. the important thing is that in that moment, someone appreciated what my performance had to offer, and for that, i should be, and am, grateful.
today i watched a video from a short concert i and a few other students put on in memory of one of our english teachers, who passed away unexpectedly to us a couple of weeks ago. i was profusely unhappy with my performance, and although many people said it was beautiful and that the sentiment was appropriate, i somehow felt that i had failed dr. davaran, that i had flushed my last chance to do something good for him right down the toilet. i got over it until today, when i saw the video, and was absolutely horrified at how awful i sounded in head voice. probably some of the worst head voice i’ve heard come out of me lately. that set me up to shoot down my other performances that i observed today, namely “when i am laid in earth” from purcell’s dido and aeneas. when i think about it now, i actually sang it pretty well, but sometimes i get into a critical tunnel, and i can’t see the good in my performances. i can only nit pick. i am so hard on myself
this led to a small break down, a crying fit which left me shaking in a ball on my bed. i also emailed my voice teacher and said some nasty things about my voice, which in retrospect, were really not necessary for me to say at all, and in essence stated that i hate my voice on facebook. i don’t hate my voice. i’m never going to hate my voice. in fact, most of the time i am quite pleased with the uniqueness of my voice, as i am very different from the other voices in the department. it just can be a very lonely battle sometimes when you sit on the other end of the spectrum.
i want everyone to know that i am okay. i have a habit of being very self-critical, and i am a professed perfectionist. i also have a few panic attacks every semester, so naturally i’m bound to freak out over something small now and then. please know that if i seem like i’m not listening to your positive reinforcement, i am, i can just get stuck in a mode for a bit, but at heart i am listening and absorbing your comments.
i need to learn to not beat myself up so much, and focus on the positive. just the other day i posted a very happy blog entry about my improvement, and yesterday i had multiple people approach me and tell me how beautifully i sang a song in chapel. my teacher is always telling me the positives of my singing in my voice lessons. so maybe i’m not as good as other singers, or i have days where i don’t sing as well as i’d like, but the point is, i am claire karoly, mezzo-soprano, and damnit, i have something wonderful to offer to the music world!
thank you to everyone who supports me. despite my down moments, i really do believe in myself, and your unwaivering support. i am confident that i will continue to improve, and that i will live a life doing what i love. *hug*
claire, it is never good to pick out a tiny little element of an overall very good thing and put this small element in the center of one`s attention. And its a good thing to know ones weaknesses-the better you can work on them.
All the best!
It seems hokey to me even now but if I am being completely honest, saying positive affirmations has helped me a lot. I think my opinion of myself is mostly habitual and that if I work hard enough and long enough on introducing a new habit, I’ll have something better to work with. Because, frankly, at the end of the day its not what I’ve done that makes me happy, but how I feel.
I wonder too if a lot of this wasn’t inspired by grief for Dr. Davaran. I’m sure he would’ve appreciated the performance more then you did. Its hard to do anything on such a sad occassion. When I was in primary school, a girl had been run over by a car and left to die while on holiday somewhere. I didn’t really know her at all. The school choir, which I was in… we sang Julian Lennon’s Saltwater to a hall packed with her grieving relatives. In retrospect it was probably really unkind and masochistic. We were just asked to sing something and I had all the lyrics to the songs we had sung the previous year and that was among it. It was one of the hardest things I ever had to do in my life. Even some of the most seemingly callous members of the choir had to disappear moments after the performance obstensibly because they had “something in my eye.”