Honey

Daniel Johnston

Regina Spektor

I know, deep in my heart, that now is the time to make music happen in my life. I’ve just started to take small steps toward my ultimate fantasy, in summary: to perform at my own CD release party. My dream is still real fuzzy though, and I have a long way to go.

Nothing feels as good to me as making music. When I was writing music as a teenager, my heart would lift with every lyrical and melodic breakthrough. Nothing brought me more joy than playing the piano and singing for my friends and relatives and classmates.

I held the phone between my legs and sang my guts out for a new best friend. I tucked the microphone into the handle behind the piano to record my latest masterpiece. More than anything, I loved having the house to myself, pounding the keys and letting my voice be free.

In awe, I listened as truly inspired lyrics flowed from my young throat. I always wondered where the words and phrases originated, because I sure didn’t think of them. Sometimes it was weeks before I understood the meaning behind a song I had written. Making music sets my subconscious free.

I am a direct descendant of John Jones, a singer/songwriter and amazing piano player who lives and works in the music industry in Las Vegas. I grew up with a slight understanding of my genetic potential, reflected by John’s inspired performances that I had the honor to witness.

I stopped making music 10 years ago. Life was demanding in other ways, and I struggle with an endless supply of self doubt and ego swings. I’m finally reaching a point in my life where I realize that anything is possible. And by anything, I mean absolutely anything. I’m tired of being afraid and I’m ready to venture out beyond the walls of this particular personal prison.

I recently wrote to John to ask advice about all these things. The last line of his email summed up everything I needed to hear:

You have the power to make it what you want, you just have to decide if you want to spend the resources to create it the way you say.

I’ve been taking awesome voice lessons once a month for a total of four times so far. Sarah wastes no time in teaching me everything she knows about singing, and I’m doing my best to soak it all in. If I’m very diligent, I will practice and improve at least three of the things I learned today. If you’ve taken voice lessons before, these things may be familiar to you. To me, it’s learning to relate to my body in a whole new way. I’m in very unfamiliar territory here.

Deep Breathing. So I guess I’m supposed to breathe into my stomach instead of into my chest. This is a real tough one for me, seeing as how I was a committed smoker for half my life and I suffer from asthma. Breathing in general to me is a sensitive concept and I have a lot of trouble when I try to change the way I’m doing it, ’cause it’s a little scary. All that aside, I will practice blowing up my tummy with air and pushing the air down, rather than watching my breath float my shoulders up around my ears, where I usually keep them.

Singing Loudly. I don’t know what it is with this one. If you’ve ever seen me at karaoke, you know that I sing as loudly as I can when I have a microphone and a great song. When I’m practicing, and especially in front of my teacher, I have a really hard time letting it out. I really like the pointer that Mikal (my favorite Portland tattoo artist), was talking about the last time we went for karaoke. She said that people should just let it out and let it go. All the hesitation and tension just bring the song down, man.

Relax. This is the hardest one of all. For the life of me, I can’t get my face and my tongue and my neck and my throat to let go and just be when I have sound coming out of me. Especially when I’m nervous, but also just in general, I tighten everything up as I move up toward the higher notes. According to Sarah, I just need to spend some time singing in front of the mirror, so I can catch myself in the act. It’s easy to see when I screw my face up to meet all these new wrinkles.

Speaking of singing, one of my favorite singers in the whole world was on David Letterman! The Gossip is the bomb and Beth Ditto’s dress is hot!

My voice teacher’s studio is only a block away from my house now, so I walk. She’s made a great space in her basement and it feels light and comfortable. I had my third 30-minute lesson last week (I take one lesson per month). Every time I meet with Sarah I learn a million things I’ve never understood but always wondered, and all these things are about my own body.

The last few months of practicing in my truck during my commute have been extremely difficult for me. I’m working on simple slides, but what may be easy for others (Agent has no problem), is nearly impossible for me. I cannot seem to slide through my entire range without reaching my break and falling off it as though it were a cliff. I sound like my voice is cracking horribly, whether I’m sliding up or sliding down the scales.

This has been rather humbling for me. I do not have a lot of confidence about my voice in general, but I do believe in my ability enough to be spending a lot of time, energy, and 25 bucks a month to see if I can make it better. I’ve never taken lessons before, and I have faith in my natural ability. However, when I’m trying to practice singing and it sounds really bad, I have to wonder why I’m doing this at all.

Awesome for me, Sarah is a great teacher. She remains patient with my frustration and has given me a wide range of tools to help me overcome this very difficult obstacle. Through her clear and inspirational teaching style, I am able to understand more and more about my self and my abilities.

I have learned through this exercise that I hold a lot of tension in my neck and throat. My voice wrecks at the break because my throat is so tight, barely anything can get through. My ability to sing struggles against my anxiety and I am once again realizing the practice of letting go. Sometimes I think learning to let go is the point of every kind of practice there is.

I stopped listening to my own collection of music a number of years ago and switched to the Internet radio service, Pandora. I stopped because so much of the music I’ve listened to over the years is soaked in my emotions and thoughts of the time when I listened to that music the most. Every time I try to relax with a little Elliott Smith, for example, I’m immediately thrown back into a sad and lonely winter in Olympia when I was trying really hard (and failing) to quit smoking.

My pickup truck’s deck is totally busted, except that it will play CD’s. None of the buttons work, though, so I’m stuck listening to the entire disc of whatever I slide into the player. Mostly I’ve been dedicated to my favorite podcasts, but lately I’m feeling drawn back to listening to music. I started loading up a CD of my favorite stuff today and realized that most likely, I’ll be driving down the freeway trying to enjoy my traffic-free commute, and I’ll be sobbing my eyes out, cause all these songs are just dripping with nostalgia.

It probably doesn’t help that I’m one of the cheesiest people I know. I always love the songs that touch that spot right below my heart, the spot that makes my chest tighten and swell a little. I get all worked up in the middle of a piano solo and want to jump through the radio and grab hold of the person making all that lovely noise and never let go. Good thing for me, there’s plenty of cheesy music out there to enjoy.

Here are a few of the songs that will have me weeping in my car this week:

• Alison Kraus: Deeper than Crying
• Elliott Smith: Sweet Adeline
• James Taylor: Carolina in My Mind
• Chantal Kreviazuk: Surrounded
• Tracy Chapman: You’re the One
• Paul Simon: Obvious Child
• Ani Difranco: Dilate (I’m especially sensitive to Ani)
• Keane: She Has No Time
• Tori Amos: Strange
• Holly Cole: Alison
• Michelle Shocked: Anchorage

And just for the fun of it, just to torture myself as much as I could possibly imagine, I had a little listen to the Opening from the Brokeback Mountain soundtrack. Yes, sometimes I enjoy gut-wrenching sorrow.