🎤 Learning to Surrender through Singing
Letter 164: the sound of music & why I took voice lessons
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Aloha fellow learn-it-all 👋
Greetings from Yoga under the Palms at Le’ahi Park in Honolulu, Hawaii ⛅️
I’ve been lately thinking a lot about change.
I can change a lot of things in my life. I’ve been trying to become more flexible by going to yoga. Now, I can touch my toes. I’ve been trying to get a higher spice tolerance, so I enjoy eating more foods than a medium salsa and eventually travel to Thailand with my sister without my tongue falling off. I’ve landed on seasoning my eggs each day with Tony Chaschere’s creole seasoning. I’m no longer a fire-breathing dragon, so I’m blessed with that change and have come so far (yet still like to have milk handy just in case, you never know.)
Ever since recording myself singing Part of your World from The Little Mermaid, I’ve been pondering how I could get this song down better. Naively thinking, “Maybe I can magically wake up someday with a higher voice”.
That is something I’ve realized is not the case. I am going to try to get to know my own voice as it is rather than trying to change it.
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about how pouring paint taught me to surrender. This week I’m writing about how I’ve surrendered to accepting where my voice is meant to be sung. Perhaps this is a spiky point of view: I believe that we all can sing so we might as well learn how to.
Now, let’s dive into letter 164 from a learn-it-all. Enjoy!
❓Question to think about
Why the heck did I sign up for voice lessons?
🖊️Writing
On the Big Island of Hawaii, I was sitting in a circle in May with my zen sangha. We were all crosslegged under the radiating starlit sky and a coconut tree in the misting rain with my cobalt blue camping cup full of hot cocoa and my duct-taped raincoat. We were having a party for our last night together before the intensive meditation sesshin was over. The conch shell horn still went off at 4:30 AM for our final sitting together the next morning.
Everyone around me one by one was reciting poetry that they memorized or singing songs. I was the youngest person sitting in that circle by over a decade so you’d think little old me would have something memorized with my sharp young noggin. Anything. But nope. Zilch. Nada. I had nothing to recite. I felt sad. That was something I wanted to change in my first brain.
Coincidentally, on those last days, I felt my grandma Omi’s presence walking alongside me and singing along in the beautiful nature. As my hiking boots made crackling volcanic rock sounds under my feet with each step or I heard the howling of the wind carrying the sound of the waves hitting the wall at the shoreline, I also heard “The hills are alive, with the sound of music”. Since I had not been talking for a long period of time, my senses became more sensitive and my imagination grew rampant with an impulse to hum.
After my arrival back on Oahu post zen sesshin, I watched a newly released Disney movie in the theater of The Little Mermaid, and felt moved by the music and story. When the mermaid Aerial exchanges her voice for two legs, she quickly realizes how living without her vocal expression feels meaningless.
This made me think, “Why do I take my voice for granted?”
The thought prompted me to take action and reach out to my musical friend Lucie Lynch, who I’d previously worked with while managing the creation of the House of Pure Aloha song.
I asked if she knew anyone who gave voice lessons. She immediately responded with an invitation for me to partner with her. Within the day, I already had my first lesson on the calendar. I felt impulsive but I heeded the call I felt to be courageous. (Reading Brené Brown recently also nudged me). These were the intentions I scribbled down in my journal:
Lucie had me extend air into every cell of my body (or at least had me imagine to) and I felt my diaphragm and belly expand full of oxygen. The power of the voice is driven by the inhale and opening of the mouth.
Next, she took me through some drills to warm up my voice with the vowels, and I mirrored her voice by ear. It was uncomfortable at first. Closing my eyes helped. Standing and swaying from side to side helped even more. I was shocked at how fun this was. I wasn’t afraid of being embarrassed for pitchy tones, they’d go away. I felt like I could trust myself the more I sang. I haven’t been in music class since being a youngin at twelve years old in 8th grade performing in my final play for West Side Story. It felt like being such a beginner again and I loved it.
The encouragement and joy from Lucie were infectious. As she pounded on the djembe drum, she allowed me to lead and said, “Sing what feels right for you”.
What does feel right for me?
I’ve never really tried to find that for myself. I let the exploration begin and shocked myself at what I could do.
Here are ten surprises and reflections:
I liked singing to the beat of the drums as opposed to her acoustic guitar because I felt like it was less to try to match my voice to a note. And the drum felt more earthy too.
Each voice has a home base of the notes it is most comfortable hitting. Find those and start there. I am an alto with a natural tendency for C and G notes.
Speaking is easier while trying to sing with emotion is tricky. I tried out singing that I was feeling shy, loudly proving I am there, frustrated, sad, and happy on an island. (The last emotion was easiest for me, no surprise.)
The voice is a muscle that can be exercised daily with 5 minutes of humming rather than an intensive hour every week. There is a rollercoaster of vowels to warm up with and I can use clapping duck lips.
It’s easier for me to go up the staircase of notes rather than to sing down them to deeper notes.
The voice naturally wants to find other voices to mirror. Trust that. Mine tends to harmonize with it when it finds the note.
Finding and singing with your soul takes bravery and some support is helpful to make it less scary.
Anyone can sing. Whether the audience resonates with it is not their judgment to share. Never tell someone to quit.
Sometimes a singer might have a great technique while other times you resonate with the lyrics like Taylor Swift or they’re a great performer like Quinn Xcii or the sound simply sits well with you. You don’t really have to have a reason of why it feels good to listen to music.
The Aerial “Part of Your World” song is too high for me and not the area where my voice is most comfortable, but I can maybe get there eventually with practice.
You don’t need to ask for permission or rationalize a desire to do something at all but this is what happened for me on why and how I felt about my mini project to become a competent singer.
I used to have a limiting belief that I could not sing. I have no natural talent. It was a fixed mindset I wanted to break. Even though I’m not going to become a professional singer anytime soon, it’s fun to have voice lessons to explore more of my voice.
✨ Habit to start in July: Recording a voice memo humming (or singing) for 5 minutes a day after work on my evening stroll
🎧Listening
I am not the things my family did
I am not the voices in my head
I am not the pieces of the brokenness insideI am light
I am light
I am light, I am light
I am light, I am light
I am light, I am lightI'm not the mistakes that I have made
Or any of the things that caused me pain
I am not the pieces of the dream I left behind
🎤 Recording
An assignment I received from Lucie was to sing “I Am Light” by India.Arie
Here is my recording:
🎬 Watching
I’ve been watching the movie “The Sound of Music” a couple of times this past month. It’s a three-hour movie but I simply do not care. If you don’t care to watch the movie, I highly encourage the soundtrack to this movie. It is phenomenal and inspired me to learn to sing.
It’s moving to see what a tomboyish postulant (Julie Andrews) can do to bring life back into the home of a widowed naval captain with seven children through music and singing. I have absolute tears when the dad starts singing with his kids for the first time since his wife passed. The art of singing facilitated closeness, open communication, and joy across the whole family.
Andrews was a hero of my grandma. Julie Andrews in this movie embodies my grandma's essence as her role model, and it’s beautiful to connect those dots.
It’s never too late to form a deeper connection; age doesn’t mean youth is gone. Music can connect us all.
📜🖋 Poetry Corner
The Road Not Taken
BY ROBERT FROST
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.🔍Word to define
Sing: To utter sweet melodious sounds, as birds do.
⛬ History of the word
Middle English singen, from Old English singan "to chant, sing," especially in joy or merriment; "celebrate, or tell in song". Also used in late Old English of birds and wolves, and sometimes in Middle English also "play on a musical instrument."
The sense of "utter enthusiastically" (of praises, etc.) is from 1560s. The criminal slang sense of "to confess to authorities" is attested as early as 1610s, but modern use probably is a fresh formation early 20c. To sing for one's supper, implying lack of funds, is by 1745.
Every child should be taught, from its youth, to govern its voice discreetly and dexterously, as it does its hands ; and not to be able to sing should be more disgraceful than not being able to read or write. For it is quite possible to lead a virtuous and happy life without books, or ink ; but not without wishing to sing, when we are happy ; nor without meeting with continual occasions when our song, if right, would be a kind service to others. [Ruskin, "Rock Honeycomb"] (source)
🌟Quote to inspire
“A True Fan is defined as someone who will purchase anything and everything you produce. They will drive 200 miles to see you sing.”
- Kevin Kelly (founding executive editor of Wired magazine, writer, photographer, conservationist, and student of Asian and digital culture)
📸 Photo of the Week
This past Tuesday wasn’t a typical one for me. I biked up as far as I could up Haleakalā National Park on Maui. I naively thought I could make it to the top at 10,000ft above sea level but I fell short. I stopped at 6k after pushing myself to my limits. My body hit its max. The altitude made my heart wild & shrunk my breath. The view and silence were heavenly up in the clouds.
In the moment when I tapped out and quit early, I judged myself counting it as a DNF (did not finish) BUT in hindsight, when I look at my stats they feel inhuman. It’s hard to believe that my body is actually capable of such a trek. The body can go places the mind cannot fathom.
🙏Shoutouts
To Lucie Lynch. Thank you so much for helping to confidently bring my voice into my life and teaching me to sing.
To Uncle Clay for being such a supportive role model in my life. He makes Hawaii feel more like home being his hānai niece. If you are reading this Uncle Clay, know that I love and appreciate you so much.
To my friend Cassidy for the idea to bike up Haleakalā on Maui and for cheering me on up until I reached my limit at 6K feet. If you are reading this, congratulations again on making it all the way to the top! Maybe someday for me (but also maybe not, it wasn’t as fun for me as it was for you).
I appreciate you reading this!
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Never stop learning 😁
Mahalo 🌺
Jen
PS - in case you missed last week’s letter 🐬 The emotional roller coaster of life: dancing dolphins and bike theft
PPS - if you have any idea why Substack is not allowing me to upload audio, please let me know :)
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