Day 6

I took some creative liberty with today's vocal meditation... (it was bound to happen sooner or later : )

I went to a bar called Alley Cat in Oakland. There is a piano player there named Ron Dibble who is somewhat of a legend I learned. He plays piano and knows hundreds of songs by heart. He's been playing there for 53 years! I basically ended up singing 4 songs with him playing piano. As a singer I have tended to shy away from anything that slightly resembles karaoke. I warmed up to the idea with some help from my friend who I was there with. By the end of the night, we were all sitting around Ron's grand piano which has a huge top that extends out and there is a circle of mic's where people sit and sing songs until late night. I was nervous the first song and then slowly started to surrender and give in to this laid back and very informal 'cheers' bar type setting. it was like classic karaoke in the round.

although i don't intend on expanding that far out with what I call vocal meditation I think it's important to acknowledge that for me this was a practice. singing in a karaoke style setting which I have snubbed in some form my whole life. as a singer i thought i don't really want to sound "bad" like so many people do while singing others songs, but i also thought it would be too pretentious to sound too "good".

i had to let go of both sounding good or bad and just have fun with it. it felt like a breakthrough of sorts because it really allowed me to not take myself too seriously. and some of the time i think i sounded ok and some of the time it was a stretch b/c i was playing with another musician for the first time and trying to navigate his style of playing while singing songs i wasn't all that familiar with.

lesson- learning to relax and give in to something i had mental resistance to can be a healing and reparative experience!

ok- about to do today's vocal med...