Where are you high note? On Friday, we completed singing school at Brockwell, and it was time for the big performance. Foolishly, I thought that singing a solo in front of hundreds of people should be something I have on my "kick the bucket" list. There are lots of things on the list, but parasailing and bungee jumping are hard to schedule at Brockwell, Arkansas. That left 2 weeks of a famous singing school that has been there and thriving for 61 years. My advice to all is that I want to be slapped upside the head, the next time I cave to vanity and listen to someone tell me that I have a lovely singing voice. What I have is a voice able to hit very high notes but when one is nervous and pressure is mounting, that clear, high bell tone becomes the bong of death.
When anyone gets nervous, then the heart starts to race. Mine is already on the first lap around the track just sitting still and relaxing. Picturing the fiasco that could occur as I took the microphone was beginning to have a telling effect on the old ticker as the momentum to arise and walk across the stage smacked me in the face. Don't panic. I made it across the stage and, through divine intervention, slipped up and forgot to introduce myself and my song. Introducing oneself is really just so everyone will know who your parents and family are, being a small community, everyone knows everyone else. I could feel the nervous vibes rolling off of Eddy and his face was getting redder as I took my position by the piano. Got started right and hit the chorus when the easiest part of the song, my strongest part of the song, should have just bellowed out. I sang it too high....Oops, the disturbing thing was that if I was this high now, when we got through 4 more lines, then the glass would crack. Not wanting to have to pay for new sets of windows for the school, I adjusted smoothly but lost my place in the song. Crap, did you know that you can pray and sing at the same time. I wasn't praying for deliverance from the song, just maybe a non-injurious tornado to wipe the memories of the audience clean to Kansas. Now comes a key change that leads to the beauty of the song and a rip-roaring close. I stumbled. My patient coach and piano player, paying no attention to the judges on American Idol, stopped, said that we would start over at the key change. All I could see were faces, some sympathetic, some stunned, some bored and some in pain. Knowing that they needed some comic relief, I grinned, and told them, " this way you will get a double dose of my high notes!" The faces that were in sympathy laughed. The others, I didn't get a good look at as black spots in front of my eyes were fortuitously blocking out 99% of the audience.
Well, the culmination of a "bucket list" item made me feel like I was kicking the bucket, but I made it through and ended clearly and dramatically. However, you might want to run an EKG on my husband next time!
