This post is going to get a bit sentimental, just to warn you all in advance.
This week I’m going to talk about why I started singing in the first place and why I kept doing it.
Initially, I was forced to join church choir, and if you’ve read my previous posts you’ll know that I quit that after we received a new, very unfriendly teacher. It was only after being introduced to Ed Sheeran by first girlfriend that I started to get back into it in a serious way. The main reason that it took me so long was because all of the music I had listened to up until that point (essentially all throughout my middle school years) was pop and pop-punk. Both of these genres tend to have higher male vocals, and so I, having no technical skill and no confidence in my voice, had to to strain for their notes. I eventually just stopped trying all together because trying to mimic them was hurting my voice. Somehow, I hadn’t really been exposed to other music and didn’t think about trying to sing alternatives to this.
When I first heard Ed Sheeran, I didn’t think he was anything special, but what came of this was me beginning to feel that I could sing like him. What I later realized is that his voice is actually very special; what I previously was regarding as not special was actually more of his range and timbre. He sang much lower than the music I listened to before, and I could sing his songs comfortably. This is essentially what reignited my desire to sing and ability to do so in a serious way and on a fairly regular basis.
Obviously, simply hearing someone with a similar vocal range to you and starting to sing their songs doesn’t just turn everybody into someone who sings almost every day. There are things about singing that I probably benefit from more than the average person, the main thing being expression.
Although it doesn’t show, I’m a pretty sensitive person, as most musicians tend to be. I’m severely bothered or upset by something on a pretty regular basis, but I’m not really the kind of person to go rant about my issues to my friends. There are some types of things that I will seek advice for, but more emotional topics I tend to never talk about. Obviously this is unhealthy, but I deal with this through singing. Regardless of whether or not somebody can hear me or what the problem I’m currently facing is, singing something at the top of my lungs will almost always make me feel significantly better, which is why I essentially have to do it. While I consider singing art, it’s also my therapy. When I’m not able to sing regularly (which, unfortunately, I’ve been having trouble with due to having a roommate) I end up becoming a very unhappy person as I essentially have no way of releasing my frustrations.
I may have made myself out to sound like a very sad person, which I didn’t mean to do. Everybody has their outlets and ways of blowing off steam. I just happen to have a lot of steam, and my way of blowing it off is to make music.
To conclude, I would strongly recommend that anyone else who hasn’t found themselves a good, healthy, and productive outlet really consider taking up singing or some other instrument.