Working Anxiety

In working with John, I’m encountering so much new material. It’s an overwhelming, unbelievable store of facts and hacks and exercises. It’s so huge that just in typing up my notes from each recorded session, I spend hours working it all out in my head—and it’s not worked out. It’s an incredible effort just to absorb the material, much less grasp it or, holy shit, grok it!

So I suppose I’ll tell you a secret: Singing was never, ever hard for me.

I never had to exert too much of an effort to do it right. Practice was always very low-key—more learning the music than really working on my technique. I got so far, so quickly, with so little effort, that it never seemed useful to put more effort into it. It seemed silly—maybe I felt that if it required any more effort, I probably wouldn’t be able to do it anyway.

And that’s how I’m feeling now, but completely different. Faced with all of this information and learning, I’m afraid that my inability to do this right away, do this naturally and easily… means that I can’t. Means I won’t be able to learn it.

There’s more to this, because I live in an apartment now. Practicing here means all my neighbors can hear me. And I’m not making pretty song-learning sounds—I’m making goofy bird noises and grunts and hoots and all sorts of things designed to help me find that perfect voice. And I’m not accustomed to letting people hear me sounding goofy. (Well, most of you know that’s not true—you know how goofy I am. But when it comes to singing… I feel very differently.)

Maybe it’s time to let some of that goofy back into my singing, huh?

I have been dedicating a great deal of time to this but I realize I still have so far to go. And I can’t bear the thought of giving it up without a fight, but it’s so scary. Knowing I will need an exponential increase in practice time before I get somewhere, that is scary. Wondering if I am good enough, capable enough, that is scary. Thinking about my neighbors asking me what kind of obnoxious exotic bird sex I’m having throughout the day—SCARY.

But can you imagine what would happen if I could do it? I mean, what if it works? As much as I trust John and believe whole-heartedly that he knows what he’s doing, so much of this information is so new to me that even despite those things it all requires some suspension of disbelief. (To be honest, it makes me want to do all the research myself, just to see exactly how it all fits together—but I wouldn’t know where to start, and dude, I’ve got my hands full already!)

So all of this… feeling self-conscious, feeling incompetent, feeling as if rejection is inevitable… I’m not used to letting myself feel these things, not in this particular way. I’m used to avoiding them, finding ways around them, focusing on the things I do excellently with no trouble. And of course I’m having a problem dealing with them. Who knows if I’ve ever really dealt with them!

Yes, there is that person in my head who is convinced I should give up. But to hell with that person! Am I a man or a mouse!?