Prologue
♦ What if everyone can sing and there is no such thing as being tone deaf?
♦ What if people who know they can sing can learn to sing better than they ever imagined?
♦ What if stepping into our Voice changes a little bit of everything about us, setting us free to discover even more hidden treasures within us and everyone else?
With these questions in mind, nine years ago I began my odyssey to claim my most powerful, most authentic Voice.
When I turned fifty, I wrote a parody of I Feel Pretty (I Feel Fifty), which was the first time I ever wrote a song with the intention of being funny. It scared the poop out of me, but I sang it anyway. Then I auditioned for a community theater musical, which required a lot of six-part harmony. I was completely terrified all the time, though I still managed to have fun. I figured if I were terrible, it was the director’s job to stop me. My job was to walk out to the brink of destruction and sing my heart out.
From that musical I helped form a four-women singing group, and then I found Claude Stein and his Natural Singer workshop at Breitenbush Hot Springs in the Cascade Mountains of Oregon. My odyssey got even more interesting…(clothing optional in the hot springs.)
The natural beauty and serenity of the hot springs, the river, the trees, and the vegetarian fare serve as a poultice for the soul. Just being there means to be living and breathing in the song of the Earth. Throw in a massage, some yoga, and a plunge from a steaming hot pool to an icy cold one, and the alchemy begins.
A Natural Singer Odyssey
Round One
Right before I turned 51 I attended my first Natural Singer Workshop facilitated by Claude Stein, www.naturalsinger.com . The story I told about my voice at the time was that it was perhaps pretty weak. I was fairly confident I could be on pitch most of the time, but I believed I had no business singing solo.
As the workshop began, Claude asked us to write on a note card what we wanted to have happen for us during the retreat. I wrote that I wanted to learn how to sing through my break, that place where the voice shifts from the chest to the head. Sometimes this transition cracks, and I wanted to make it smooth. I was proud of myself for having recently learned the term “break.” I thought this was a good and noble goal.
What I wanted from the workshop changed as I saw people getting coached. Each person experienced a little miracle. As each person was willing to do what Claude asked them to do, they stepped more fully into their Authentic Voice. This process was always beautiful and inspiring, no matter where anybody started with their voice and their ability to match pitch.
When it came my turn to be coached, I realized I had not let myself know what I really wanted to be able to do with my voice. What I really wanted was to be able to sing like Bonnie Raitt. I believed this was impossible because I thought I had such a weak voice, such a little girl voice. I was stunned to learn that I hadn’t let myself know what I really wanted. Being in the presence of miracles is intoxicating and liberating. I was liberated right out of the limiting story I didn’t even know I was packing around.
As I stood in front of the other participants, wrapped in trembling expectancy, I asked for what I really wanted but thought impossible. I told Claude I wanted to sing like Bonnie Raitt, and we took off. Claude had me swing my hips and throw my arms out as if I were shedding off years of rust, which I guess I was.
He started playing an invented blues tune and I made up words as I walked into the audience and belted out my soul. In that moment I could have been on any stage in the world. I owned it.
I can, indeed, sing like Bonnie Raitt, and from that day forward my voice has never sounded the same.
Round Two
A few years later I came back for another dose of the Natural Singer. I was singing on stage, my own songs and other original tunes, but I didn’t feel confident about singing songs I’d heard recorded by others. I got lost in my expectations or assumptions or something. Instead of singing those songs as if I’d written them, I was looking for approval. I had not been able to shake myself out of this trap, so I asked Claude for help.
The song I chose to sing when I was getting coached was “Blue Moon”. Claude told us to not practice stopping for any reason, to sing right through our tears, and to not practice telling stories and making excuses before we sang, but just get up there and sing. Shut up and sing!
I got up and sang, but very soon I started to cry. I kept singing or rather mouthing words with no sound as I sobbed, but I did indeed not let my tears stop my singing or my life.
When I finished croaking out “Blue Moon,” Claude said, “That was the best example of not letting your tears stop you I’ve ever seen. Is there a story that goes along with this song?”
There was indeed a story that went with this song.
When I was about nine years old, I tried out for a talent show at my elementary school. I chose this song “Blue Moon” from a stack of 45’s my dad had brought home from the jukebox he owned. I asked him if he would accompany me on his guitar for the talent show, but he said no, he was too busy.
I put the record on and sang along with it over and over again. I walked around the living room, singing and memorizing the words — all by myself. I practiced and practiced until I knew all the words.
I remember very clearly standing on that stage all by myself singing “Blue Moon” a cappella. I sang it perfectly. Every note in every word was on pitch as far as I could tell.
I did not get chosen for the talent show. This is something that would never happen now-a-days, but it happened to me. I understood that a solo a cappella performance didn’t fit in with the skits and piano recitals of the other students, so I was not as devastated as I could have been. I knew I was born to be on stage.
One of the reasons I didn’t get chosen might have been that my dad, well-known in our small town as a violent alcoholic, owned a bar called the “Blue Moon”. Maybe it was just too poignant having me singing this song. The idea that they were protecting me feels better than other interpretations I could invent about this event, so I chose this story.
I told the participants of the workshop this story and Claude had me sing the song again with all the anger I could muster. I had plenty of anger and I belted it out: “Blue Moon, you saw me standing alone, you SOB. You missed out on knowing me, you idiot…” I had a great time. Then Claude had me sing the song with compassion and forgiveness, which I did. Over the years I have done much anger and forgiveness work about my dad, but there is nothing quite like singing it out in front of people who are full of compassion and appreciation. Nothing quite like it.
When I sang the song a final time, Claude stopped accompanying me on the piano when I got to the part of the song “And then suddenly appeared before me the only one my arms would ever hold. I heard somebody whisper please adore me and when I looked, the moon had turned to gold.”
During this part of the song Claude took me in his arms and danced with me, a perfect moment of healing, a perfectly inspired moment. I’ve never seen him do this with anyone else in the three workshops I’ve attended. Claude’s ability to be present with me at that moment was a gift I appreciate profoundly and is beyond my ability to articulate adequately.
For my second coaching session, I sang “Let it Be.” There was more willingness and crying on my part, more letting go, as I squeaked out the first few measures of the song. I sang the rest of the song quietly, gently, without any of the strength I had shown as “Bonnie Raitt.”
Claude told me to ask people how my singing of the song affected them, which I did at lunch. Some of them said they would never hear the song the same way again because I had affected them so deeply. “You’re kidding!” I said.
“Didn’t you think it was powerful? What did you think?” they asked me.
“I thought it was weak and boring,” I told them. I had been so sure it was weak and boring and that they had been kind to listen, kind and tolerant. That I could have affected them from such a quiet place in me was a revelation.
This taught me I could not trust my judgments about my voice. What I had thought was weak and boring other people said was powerful and true. I realized I had a lot to learn and unlearn about my voice and what I was capable of.
Round Three
A few weeks before my 59th birthday, I attended my third Natural Singer Workshop. This time my goal was to learn to trust that deep silent part inside me, letting go of everything I think I know, and then allow an expression from a deep quiet place in me. I wanted to release any more assumptions I had about what my voice was capable of expressing.
I volunteered to get coached the first morning, ready to go into the quiet, vulnerable places inside me. Walking up to the front of the room, I got ready to sing one of my favorite songs: “I am an Orphan”. As I had learned only a week earlier, from the internet no less, that my dad had died in May, I was, in fact an orphan in reality.
I cried through the singing of “I am an Orphan”, no surprise there. Then Claude asked me to sing my fears out as I finished the sentence: “I’m afraid to let you know….”
“I’m afraid to let you know I don’t know,” I sang and then cried some more. I was singing from the place in me that is open enough to not know. I was ready to let go of everything and become nothing but whoever I am called to be.
That evening we had a Master’s Class, and because Claude has emphasized that we are there to practice, not to rehearse or perform, but practice, I let myself try stuff without knowing how it would turn out.
Claude accompanied me as I sang “I Can’t Make You Love Me” sung so heartbreakingly well by Bonnie Raitt.
I let ‘er rip. I sang out from my heart and my toes. I belted it out so loudly, I thought I might injure something. I also let myself sing softly. I let all my emotion come out through each note. I owned the song and the moment, all the notes that cracked as well as the notes I could feel vibrating in my whole body.
I knew I had made an impact. The song was about me, but it was about everyone who wasn’t loved back by someone who lived deep in their bones. Afterwards one woman said I even made the heavens cry because it started raining while I was singing.
We all got to sing one final song, so I sang my revised version of “I am a Woman”. “I have climbed the banks of the Nile in the pouring rain through mud, manure, sticks and stones and bare feet without a cane…” this is a song I am not shy about singing, a song I have no doubt I can belt out to the heavens, a song I have no insecurities about.
I wasn’t sure why my intuition called to sing this song as my final song because I was at the Natural Singer Workshop to take risks not hang out in my comfort zone. After I sat down I realized the risk I took standing completely in my strength, in my bigness, in my grandeur with no apologies. I was risking making other people feel insecure or risking having people judge me that I was playing it safe or risking that people might think blah, blah, blah.
My singing this song was my taking a stand for my right to be however I am in the world at any given moment. Very cool.
My Glory Book
Claude has told me three things that I have recorded in my Glory Book, where I write down things that people have said to me that are so precious I don’t want ever to forget them. In the second workshop I sang a song I wrote called “My Mommy is in Angel”. Claude liked my song so much, he said he wished he had written it. This was huge praise to me, as I have had no formal training in songwriting and he has worked for Julliard.
In this third workshop Claude told me I walk my talk more than anyone he’s ever known. He also told me I sang parts of “I Can’t Make You Love Me” better than Bonnie Raitt. He said I was a master.
Claude’s Gift
Claude comes with an amazing skill set about the biology of voice and singing, but that’s not what makes him a great workshop facilitator. He comes with 30 years experience of giving workshops, but that’s also not what makes him a great facilitator.
I believe what separates him from the crowd is his deep understanding and commitment to focusing on what is working instead of what is wrong with people. He takes delight in progress, not demanding perfection or taking it personally when people take two steps forward and then take one step back.
What does this have to do with you?
He is not a saint. He says he likes to win and for him winning is when people free their voices. I can live with that. He struggles with his own inner voices of perfectionism, but I like this about him. He knows his ego is right there ready to jump in and take over, so he is on guard for that, and I appreciate that about him. I’ve been with people who are so sure they’re right they are not watching for their ego’s infestation from what they’re doing, and they are truly dangerous people.
Everyone can sing and everyone can write. You need to find people like Claude and quite frankly, like me, to help you feel safe enough to try new things and see what happens. When you are surrounded by people who are rooting for you, gasping at every bit of courage you show, appreciating every little sound or action that moves you forward — well, this is almost heaven and it doesn’t just happen in West Virginia.
Blessings,
Vicki