SINGING FOR JOY!

I did a new piece at my singing lesson this evening.  I was particularly pleased because I sight-sang it quite well (my teacher was impressed but so was I!), but also it was a piece I immediately liked and will now consider for my Grade 8 exam.

I was driving home debating in my mind what doing a new piece of music is like.  Initially I thought it was like starting a new exercise book at school (do children still use exercise books nowadays or is it all loose-leaf printouts from the internet and virtual essays?).  I remember the excitement of the smooth unspoilt cover and the pristine white pages, all waiting to be written on.  There was a sense of anticipation: what pearls of wisdom, imaginative stories or brilliant pieces of work were going to fill these pages?

However the exercise books all too quickly would grow dog-earred around the corners, the cover would get torn and scuffed and doodled on, and the inner pages would become rough and bumpy from the indentations of all that writing.  A piece of music doesn't become like that: or rather, the manuscript may as you work on it in more detail and put your own personal comments, reminders and notation on it (slow up here.... crescendo there.... keep that note light.... watch that vowel sound.... that's a sharp not a natural....), but the music itself, if any good, remains divine and familiarity, rather than breeding contempt, often breeds more awareness of the detail and awe for the skill of the composer.  The performer or listener may become more comfortable with the piece and may temporarily grow tired of it if heard or performed too much: but after that follows the pleasure of going back to the piece many weeks, months or even years later, to rediscover it and realise that although you still know it well, there are more jewels to discover.

I have no idea whether the piece I first sang today will be one of those that lasts the test of time for me.  I rather suspect it will as it comes from an anthology of songs and arias of which I never grow tired, Twenty-Four Songs and Arias of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries: a fundamental song book for nearly all singers I should think, with a well-chosen selection of pieces.  My very first singing piece came from there and I still know it and enjoy singing it today, finding something different to consider every time I sing it, even if it is only to myself.

That is, of course, also the delight of live performing.  Human beings rarely achieve perfection, especially ones with only the small talent I have (as opposed to those who are incredibly gifted and talented, though even those sometimes make mistakes), and when performing live you can always wish you had done something differently or better.  But isn't that great: it means there is always something you can strive for, and so long as you feel your performance was good then at least you don't need to beat yourself up about it either.

I'm currently working on my song selection for a demo CD I'm going to make.  My teacher asked who I was aiming it at: the answer is I don't know, but if even one or two people engage me and pay me to sing I will be overjoyed, and all my years of feeling a failure when I was at University should be finally put to rest.