Give yourself permission to sing imperfectly

So this week I was talking to another voice teacher and she said "I have a student whose high school is doing Pirates of Penzance this year.  She'd be a perfect Mabel; all of the arias sound great in her voice . . . except those really fast really high coloratura bits. She's a really strong lyric soprano rather than a coloratura. Anything above a high C is just not there yet."  Well, then we proceeded to discuss various ways to help this student tap into her bell tone and work on coloratura.  But, considering the auditions were this week as well, eventually I said "And just give her permission to sing it imperfectly.  Modify the really high bits if you have to.  That's okay.  She should just be honest that that's not one of her strengths right now."  Because here's the thing:  I know how easily focusing on one small imperfection can derail an entire song/audition/performance.  And those fast bits above a high C in Mabel's repertoire?  They're like 1% of what she sings.  Actually, less than 1%.  So how sad is it to focus on that less-than-one-percent deficiency when the rest of what she's singing is lovely?  

Now, I don't know that high school director.  Maybe it's really important to him/her that Mabel sing those quick bits perfectly exactly as written, but I kind of doubt it.  Maybe there will be another singer who can sing those really high bits perfectly as well as sing all of the other parts well and so she'll get the part, but there's nothing you can do about it.   The best thing to do is to be honest about your ability with yourself and those you sing for and then embrace what you do well.  In this instance, to me, that means this singer should focus on what she does well and modify the heck out of the parts that she has to without shame.  Tell the director that you can't sing those parts if s/he asks.

That's much easier said than done.  I know.  For years it mystified me why I could perform on a stage in front of hundreds of people and not get nervous, but I'd crash and burn due to nerves during auditions and juries.  I chalked it up to "the pressure."  It took me years to realize that "the pressure" was largely composed of my focus on my vocal deficiencies and trying to control and fix those rather than focusing on my strengths.  Yes, of course in an audition you're singing for someone who will notice your mistakes--they're not sitting there wanting to be entertained and they are there to compare you to others.  But you don't have to compare yourself to others.  This was one of the big differences for me between performing and auditioning--in a performance I wasn't busy comparing and measuring myself against others.  Additionally, you have no control over what you haven't learned to do well yet.  And most of the time you don't know what a director is looking for and you can't really control that.  So why not go into an audition saying to yourself "You know what, I do this one thing really well, and if I show them that I can do this one thing really well in this audition, I'll consider that a success."  I used to think that the key was just focusing on one thing at a time and I used to say to myself  "Here's this one thing I really struggle with.  In fact I've been struggling with it year after year and I kind of feel like I'm banging my head against a brick wall, but if I just manage to that well in this audition then I'll be happy with my performance."  I also used to think that the whimpy non-progressing way to learn was to focus on the things I felt comfortable doing and thought I did well.  So i didn't.  I tried to tackle everything I thought was wrong with my voice.  I have learned that you actually make more progress when you're kind to yourself.  Focusing on your strengths and the positive doesn't mean that you won't try to learn new things.  It means that you're a lot less likely to get hopelessly discouraged.  

Vocal self-consciousness pervades our society.  People try to "fix" their speaking voices and their singing voices--or they simply avoid speaking and singing.  But learning to sing isn't really about fixing anything.  It's about molding and shaping what you have. I'm always a little sad when I look around my church and notice how many people aren't singing.  People often tell me that they "can't" sing.  In most cases, this is simply untrue.  Maybe you don't know if you're singing in tune or not, maybe you know you can't hit high notes, but neither of those means you can't sing.  I wish that more people gave themselves permission to sing imperfectly because I'm afraid that all of us are getting too little exposure to real unfiltered human sound.  I know moms who won't with to/with their kids.  that's just heartbreaking to me.  You can't sing in tune?  That's okay.  You think your voice is scratchy or screechy?  That's okay.  Too quite?  Fine.  Breathy, wispy, shaky?  All okay.   I mean, if you want to you could learn to fix those things, but there is inherent beauty in human vocalization, and I for one, want to hear more of it.