I passed by a woman at work in the halls today. By my terrible estimates, she was mid 40s. She was quietly singing a version of a spiritual song and it was so calming. As she passed, I found myself thinking “I hope she doesn’t ever stop.” Take license that I was thinking that towards you today, too ❤️
Well, while I never embarrassed my kids by singing in the supermarket (though I've embarrassed them infinite times), singing was my thing all of my life, until years of second-hand smoke did a number on my lungs--or so a pulmonologist told me when I asked him why I could no longer sing.
Singing was my dream, too, and I thought I was pretty good at it, but I had a second problem: My throat closed tight and wouldn't release whenever I tried to sing in front of a crowd. I had perfect pitch and a pretty good range until I thought there might be an audience. Then they both abandoned me.
It may be why I became a writer. I could do it without having to face real people in real time. LOL.
I loved this, Nicci. And I love that you still feel the need to sing your heart out!
Thank you so much for sharing your story! audiences make me open up, but I’m unfortunately not very picky about the audience - the neighborhood as I clean out my car or the hapless victims at a community pool or really just anyone. 😂
I'm still actively trying to be "discovered" Nicci! So I totally get your secret desire. Singing is such a powerful and strange thing that is handsomely rewarded or utterly shunned. We love voices almost instantly or we hate them. Years ago when I was working on my second album, I was sitting with the engineer during mixing and he had isolated Shawn Mullins's backing vocal on one of my songs. Shawn's voice lit up the entire breadth of the spectrum analyzer (LEDs that show audio frequency signal), while most people have kind of a hump in one frequency range. His voice is special and distinctive and it's why he had that huge hit back in the day. Keep singing because it brings you joy, and who knows, maybe YOU might discover you! Thanks for sharing this piece, I loved it.
Thanks, Ben! I need to go back to Shawn and listen for his voice now. I don’t want to embarrass him, but one of our Substack colleagues is a wonderful singer and I not-so-secretly want to do a collab with him.
You should give Shawn a deeper look. He’s continued to make great music albeit on a smaller stage. And you should definitely out the anonymous great singer 😁
Had the same dream of being "discovered", but as a drummer. Surely a major label A&R person comes to a local bar to hear a cover band play...right? It could happen.
I'm a terrible singer and I'm often narrating my day through songs I write on spot: "La la la, I'm using the Starbucks instant pouch because I'm too lazy to grind beans, too lazy to grind beans, toooooo laaaaazy to grind beeeeeans."
I passed by a woman at work in the halls today. By my terrible estimates, she was mid 40s. She was quietly singing a version of a spiritual song and it was so calming. As she passed, I found myself thinking “I hope she doesn’t ever stop.” Take license that I was thinking that towards you today, too ❤️
I appreciate that. And I was singing at the top of my lungs! 💖 🎶
Well, while I never embarrassed my kids by singing in the supermarket (though I've embarrassed them infinite times), singing was my thing all of my life, until years of second-hand smoke did a number on my lungs--or so a pulmonologist told me when I asked him why I could no longer sing.
Singing was my dream, too, and I thought I was pretty good at it, but I had a second problem: My throat closed tight and wouldn't release whenever I tried to sing in front of a crowd. I had perfect pitch and a pretty good range until I thought there might be an audience. Then they both abandoned me.
It may be why I became a writer. I could do it without having to face real people in real time. LOL.
I loved this, Nicci. And I love that you still feel the need to sing your heart out!
Thank you so much for sharing your story! audiences make me open up, but I’m unfortunately not very picky about the audience - the neighborhood as I clean out my car or the hapless victims at a community pool or really just anyone. 😂
I'm still actively trying to be "discovered" Nicci! So I totally get your secret desire. Singing is such a powerful and strange thing that is handsomely rewarded or utterly shunned. We love voices almost instantly or we hate them. Years ago when I was working on my second album, I was sitting with the engineer during mixing and he had isolated Shawn Mullins's backing vocal on one of my songs. Shawn's voice lit up the entire breadth of the spectrum analyzer (LEDs that show audio frequency signal), while most people have kind of a hump in one frequency range. His voice is special and distinctive and it's why he had that huge hit back in the day. Keep singing because it brings you joy, and who knows, maybe YOU might discover you! Thanks for sharing this piece, I loved it.
Thanks, Ben! I need to go back to Shawn and listen for his voice now. I don’t want to embarrass him, but one of our Substack colleagues is a wonderful singer and I not-so-secretly want to do a collab with him.
You should give Shawn a deeper look. He’s continued to make great music albeit on a smaller stage. And you should definitely out the anonymous great singer 😁
Thanks, Ben! I enjoyed that one Shawn Mullins track, and maybe you’ve convinced me to seek out more!
Had the same dream of being "discovered", but as a drummer. Surely a major label A&R person comes to a local bar to hear a cover band play...right? It could happen.
I mean… not to come full circle or anything but Train was a Led Zeppelin cover band to start. BAM!
I'm a terrible singer and I'm often narrating my day through songs I write on spot: "La la la, I'm using the Starbucks instant pouch because I'm too lazy to grind beans, too lazy to grind beans, toooooo laaaaazy to grind beeeeeans."
Haha. Have you always done that, or can you pinpoint when it started?
I spent a lot of time in self-isolation as a kid. I believe it started there.