Singing Fail

In January, my friend announced that her Teaching Musical Theory class required her to train one boy and one girl to sing in a recital. She picked the singer with the least experience and that's how I got the job. So for the last 12 weeks I spent an hour every Saturday learning different voice mechanics.

During the months of training, I would read the exchange of letters between my family and my brother who's on a mission. In one of our family letter, another brother told a story about a hard trial he had to overcome. After the incident, he summed up the experience by using his own snowboarding adage: "If you're not falling, you're not trying hard enough." A novice snowboarder myself, I took the quote to heart and wrote it down.

When the day of the recital finally arrived, I didn't feel too nervous. My singing ability hadn't risen to some miraculous level and given me a confidence boost, believe me, but I had performed in front of live audiences before, and I knew my song well enough. My turn came up, I stood in front of everyone, and started singing. The first note came out a little weird, like I had something in my throat. I muscled through the next few lines just fine, but soon forgot where I was and mumbled a forgotten line. Then, I came in ahead of the music and thanks to the amazing pianist, she covered up for me.

By the time I got back to my seat, I started to harshly critique myself. I put myself down into an ashamed state. I wanted to walk out of the recital. Then the words of my brother came into my head: If you don't fall, you're not trying hard enough. In my mind, I failed the test, but I had learned so much. I dismissed any thoughts of "I wish I never tried out back in January" because I had obtained a new skill from the experience. And now if I am ever asked to do something like that again, I have some knowledge to go off of.