The Caged Bird Still Sings

Last night I sang. My Youth Group Type Thingy (it's called Lifeteen, for the record, but I prefer my title) is doing the music for a Mass at our Church. So we practiced tonight and I sang.

Yeah, you're thinking "Big deal. You have something interesting to day about now?" Meh. It is a moderately small deal and unless this is your first time reading this blog, you should know that I think interesting is a relative term.

I sing at this Church a lot... try like, every Sunday. Most often with a mic in front of my face. To be honest, I sing a lot, period. I love music (though I don't understand it as much as I'd like to). Any way, a few years back the organist/pianist at this Church invited me to sing in the choir and gave me voice lessons. Before that, singing was something you did in the shower and an important part of pretending to be a Disney princess. After that, it's become more and more important to me. And more and more fun.

I'm a mockingbird. Most of what I learned about singing, I learned from listening to other people. In all kinds of music, both at Church, on the radio, where ever. I've worked at it and sang for weddings, funerals, Masses, talent shows... not in that order. The weddings were way after the talent shows... way after. I suppose the point of that was to show a progression, which it actually failed at doing since I failed to list them in the right order, thus making the whole thing pretty much a failure. But I am losing myself here... and most likely you too.

So I sang last night! (Get ready, here's the pointish type thing! ((I think "type thing" is my phrase of the week...)) ) And I got to sing loud. Little secret? I can be pretty loud. Particularly when I emulate opera singers. Not like I was doing that last night, but still, I was loud. They were yelling at us to sing louder. (That's actually a pet peeve of mine. When you're at a church thing and they tell you to sing louder? I can't take that kind of pressure. Plus, I'm ornery so telling me to sing louder actually kind of makes me want to shut up.)

Any way, when you sing loud, or at least when I sing loud, I get this lovely feeling. It's like a burning in my chest. It's a very good feeling... warm and vibrant and alive.

On that note, (ha ha! No music pun intended... just accidentally enjoyed.) I have often felt as though my voice was not so much me as it was in me. Like it was something apart that just so happened to get stuck inside me. (Poor thing...) But the caged bird still sings... it strikes me as somewhat incredible the way I just open my mouth and somehow, almost effortlessly, this clear sound emerges. Like "Huh... that was kind of cool. Wish I knew how I did it."

Granted, I've definitely gotten more control over time. But I still can't grasp it... maybe someday, I'll get the bird out of the cage a little bit more. Let it fly.

* I apologize for the scatteredness of this post. Usually I try to focus and use better writing habits. That wasn't really working out so great today and my quirky sense of humor got the best of me. My sincerest thanks for bearing with me.