"The notion that such persons are gay of heart and carefree is curiously untrue. They lead, as a matter of fact, an existence of jumpiness and apprehension. They sit on the edge of the chair of Literature. In the house of Life they have the feeling that they have never taken off their overcoats."
- James Thurber, My Life and Hard Times

Wednesday, December 9, 2020

It's not courage

 Sometimes I get a thing in my head that won't go away until I find a way to do the thing, even if it's so outside my comfort zone I'd rather just not do the thing.

"Sometimes" happened recently.

I'm not a singer. Yes, I can carry a tune, but I have a narrow range, very alto. I sang in the choir from third through eighth grade, always the alto section which was never the melody. It felt like I sang the same three notes for six years. In high school when it was time to audition for choir, I just...couldn't. Didn't. Walked away from it and never looked back.

I had to start singing again when I was a waitress at Farrell's Ice Cream Parlor but that was different because it was always "Happy Birthday" and everyone was singing along and nobody was in any kind of key at all.

My worst problem with singing is I tend to freeze when I'm asked to sing in public. Freeze as in, I can't even remember the melody of the damn song.

So when a friend of mine gave me an idea for a Christmas song about horse trainers (mine in particular, but it applies to all), I wrote it immediately and wanted to make a video but really didn't want to sing it myself. But there was no one else to sing it.

It doesn't help that my son is a marvelously trained and talented singer and I've listened to him sing with other trained and talented singers and I KNOW I am not trained, nor marvelously talented.

My son tried to give me a few tips on singing, which I tried to take to heart. He also helped me with the music. I'm still not a singer but the song is fun and I sang all by myself and released it to the public. It's not courage. It's just a thing I made because I had to.



PS, it may be on YouTube but I'm not so courageous as to leave comments on. Thanks, but the trolls can stay home!


1 comment:

Simon said...

You sing well, Gayle! And an excellent Christmas song. Or horse song. Or singing...song.
Your son coaches well, too.

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