Music and Me, part 2

Last time, I talked about how music played such an important part in my wife as I grew up.

As I got older, my voice got deeper and deeper, more and more like my dad's gravelly bass. For many years, I just kind of went along with that, and whenever we participated in our ward choirs, I always sang bass. I like being part of the choir and singing praises to the Lord, and a lot of times our wards haven't had many interested male voices, so I've always felt welcome. Bass was easier, both because that's where I thought I was stuck and because the bass part in church hymns tends to be a lot easier than the tenor part, and anyway tenor was just a bit too much of a stretch for me.

A couple of months ago our ward choir started practicing for our Easter program. My 9-year-old son, who for years has opted out of ward choir even though his big sister has sung with us, suddenly decided he wanted to take part. His voice hasn't changed yet, so he sings tenor (well, probably baritone actually). Since this was his first experience with the choir, I wanted to sit with him for moral support... which meant singing tenor too. Turns out, with a bit of an adjustment in my posture and a small mental shift in terms of where my voice is singing from... I CAN sing tenor! The very highest notes are still a bit of a challenge until my voice has warmed up, but with proper support, I can actually sing tenor quite well! :)

I know to many people, this may seem a really minor thing. But it's been a huge confidence-booster for me in terms of carving out a more gender-balanced identity for myself. With my newfound ability, I've been practicing singing along with Josh Groban and Collin Raye when I'm driving alone to and from work, and it's been so freeing!

Based on this success, I've started trying to figure out how to adapt my vocal ability to my speaking voice too. There are tons of video tutorials on YouTube that talk about how to do this, some more useful than others. One of the big clues that really helped me was to speak from the throat instead of from the abdomen; it's really pretty amazing how much of a difference in makes just relocating the sound resonance from your chest to your head! I've been trying this on and off lately, even sometimes at work and when talking to my kids and wife, and so far nobody's said anything to me about it, because it's still my voice, just pitched a little higher. Wow.