Singing

Note- I wrote this post a few years ago…

On Sunday I visited a friend in the hospital. She has been in the ICU for weeks and I offered to give her a foot massage. While I worked on her feet and chatted with her husband I had this overwhelming feeling that I should offer to sing to her.

So I asked if she wanted me to sing. She has a tracheotomy, so she just nodded yes.

I started by singing a few Broadway favorites using accompanying tracks on my phone. After a few songs she mouthed something to me that I could not understand, but it was obvious she had a specific song she wanted me to sing.

She tried a couple times to convey to her husband what she wanted, finally we both realized she was asking for Love is Spoken Here.

Paul and I sang that song at her sons funeral eight years ago.

I quickly hooked into the hospitals wifi and found Mo Tabs you tube version to use as my accompaniment.

I started to sing and felt the Holy Spirit fall down on our heads like a flood.

As I sang the nurses came in to suck out her lungs. I asked if they wanted me to stop singing and they said, “no, keep going.”

So I sang along with the choir while my friend coughed and the nurses worked on her and then administered medication.

After the nurses left my friend mouthed, “Sing it Again”.

I felt tears begin to well up as emotions overflowed.

“You want me to sing it again?”

Nod.

K. So I rewound the player and gave it my all.

I have learned over the years that while I truly love to perform on stage and at other venues, it is in these service opportunities when I use my voice to invite the spirit that I am able to feel and experience the full joy of music.

I have sung at many funerals for elderly friends and most of the time, while there is a sadness and loss, the music is a blessing and a joy for me and hopefully the lives of those who hear.

Conversely I have sung at funerals for a few babies and small children and the mourning and overwhelm of these untimely early deaths makes it nearly impossible for me to sing.

As I sang Love is Spoken Here to my friends I just about choked with the overwhelming sensations running through my mind.

I sang a few more songs and then finished up with O Divine Redeemer, a song that I have been trying to perfect for over twenty-five years.

I have performed this song many times. But singing it on Sunday for my friends was the best I have ever performed it and again, the Holy Spirit poured down like rain from Heaven.

The lyrics to this amazing song were so fitting as the cry for help from Jesus Christ is put to music in the most dramatically striking way. I sang it quietly and earnestly while sitting in a chair massaging Lavender into the lung reflexes of her feet.

As I sang the last note Ashley closed her eyes and mouthed the word “Beautiful”.

I do not believe I have ever heard more thunderous applause for my singing than the silent word whispered by my dear friend during her dark night of the soul.

Her Mom reported on Facebook on Monday that she is doing markedly better. As much as I believe in massage and essential oils, I know the healing power of music is real.

During many, many overwhelming and difficult moments these past few years, when I did not know what to do to lift my spirits and ease deep emotional pain the Holy Spirit would remind me to SING!

This is the thing…

I do not believe that I have that great of a voice.

I struggle with asthma and cannot breathe well enough for long phrases. I have not had too many voice lessons, so my technique is almost non existant.

I love such a weird mix of vocal styles that it is difficult to pin down what sort of a singer I am or aspire to be.

One of my earliest memories is playing an old 45 of Bob McGrath from Sesame Street singing the song, “Sing”.

“Sing, sing a song, sing out loud, sing out strong.
Sing of good things, not bad…
Sing of happy, not sad…

Sing, sing a song
Make it simple, to last your whole life long

Don’t worry that it’s not good enough, for anyone else to hear,
Sing.
Sing a song

La, la la la, La, la la la la la la la…”

I played that record on our little play stereo so many times it broke.

During the darkest moments of my life, music has been the key to my sanity.

So please, be kind. I know how presumptuous it is to throw my songs on the web and call myself a singer and even assume that people will pay me money to teach their children to sing.

True Story…

When we had a gig for The Neil Simon Players, I was doing a mic check and a few of the patrons were in the room while I sang into each mic.

I sang a few lines from a King and I song and then we started our show. After the show a woman came up to me and said that she wished I had shared my voice with the crowd.

Only a few people were still milling around, but I asked her if she wanted me to sing a song. She said yes. so I sang You’ll Never walk alone from Carousel. She and the others in the room loved it, so I sang Climb Every Mountain from The Sound of Music.’

Afterwards she told me that those were her two favorite songs. (Aren’t they all of our favorite songs?) This experience was so gratifying that I asked Richard if would be OK for me to prepare a set of Golden Oldies to share as an alternative set with our patrons. He said to go for it.

I think a side of me was wishing he had said no.

I am so much more comfortable as a Director than as a performer.

Performing solo work is one of the most nerve wracking experiences possible.

Add to the mix my lung problems, a high altitude city (5,800 ft), a general terror that my voice is not good enough, and the constant visual in my mind that I am just deluding myself like the character Mary in Pride and Prejudice, utterly clueless about my own limitations.

For those of you not in the singing world, breath support is the key to holding long phrases and singing the high notes.

When you are befuddled by Asthma AND Hypoxia and need to be on Oxygen supplementation a good portion of the day like I am and utterly refuse to wear the tubes while performing… a perfect storm of low oxygen saturation coupled with the altitude forces me to take sips of air ALL THE TIME.

This is not a big deal when you sing in a choir as you have other voices to fill in the gaps. But when singing as a soloist, it makes the songs sound choppy and breathy.

Death to the song.

Hopefully most of my gigs will be in St George which is 3,000 feet lower than Cedar and I actually sound like a singer…

I told my pals on The Neil Simon Board of Directors about this plan to sing the oldies as a set, not really informing them that I had about a years worth of rehearsing and memorization that still needed to happen before I would be ready for a 90 minute show. My friend Dave mentioned that he felt my songs would be perfect for the Honor Flight crowd.

Well, the Honor Flight might be ready for me, but I only had two weeks to prepare, and only four songs memorized.

After freaking out for a couple days, I realized that I only needed to sing the songs that I already had memorized and that we had options in terms of what show we did.

When I talked to the gentleman organizing the event I explained to him the show that I envisioned with lots of different songs from our team of players.

He said it sounded perfect.

So I still have the sense of having been thrown into the deep end of the pool and swimming frantically to stay afloat, but I am determined to give these songs my best shot.

Last night I decided to tape myself singing the set into my phone. I use this tactic with my vocal performance students. as a way for them to self critique.

As I watched the videos today, I was mostly mortified by what appeared on my You Tube Channel.

At this point the only thing that is keeping me going is the look in the eyes of those people who I sang for a couple weeks ago and the joy I felt singing to them.

As I told my daughter Shelly today, I have to start somewhere…

Jenny Hatch

Kelli O Hara sings this epic song about Childbirth and Musical Genres:

https://playbill.com/article/the-daily-distraction-country-or-opera-kelli-ohara-says-both

This is the closest we could get to a little bit of everything. Check out her epic performance of "They Don't Let You in the Opera (If You're a Country Star)" above.

The genre-bending song, written for O'Hara by Dan Lipton and David Rossmer, melds several Kelli signatures (trills, twang, etc) and biographical milestones (studying classical music, growing up in the south, and giving birth). Watch her manage to convey it all simultaneously in what she calls her own "Glitter and Be Gay."

PS I crafted a new trailer for my Substack today.