Because I write this blog and because, at times, I like to procrastinate writing this blog, I read other blogs from time to time.

The ones I like frequently contain short, pithy posts (by short, pithy … *smile*) by  clever – and concise – bloggers.

I appreciate the brevity of these bloggers. (Say that 10 times fast. *smile*) They say a lot in a little, or say not so much, but still in a few words and I enjoy having just enough food for thought with my morning coffee.

Yet while I like short posts, I can rarely write them. (The only short posts I seem to write are quotes by other people. *grin*)

I have things to work out.

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See, if I’m present or lucky (or both) when I sit down to write or step forward to sing, I have an explosion of thought or the spark of an idea and the rest of the thought (the parts that complete the thought?) spreads out like the rays of a firework.

In the spark-y, exploding moment, everything is crystalline, but then like trails of light in a dark sky, the clarity begins to fade.

Ideally, I could take time to gather/recall the spark and those light ribbons in order to capture and convey the complete firework thought/idea. (I frequently save these thoughts in text messages to myself.) But, sometimes no matter how hard I try, the full firework is gone. I remember its brilliance, but I cannot find a way to share it or clarify it.

In my spontaneous singing, I work to listen as I invent so that I can repeat those things I find “spark-y.” It’s kind of like hitting the record button or taking a picture. I think of it as fixing the firework in my mind’s eye.

If I work to make sure the initial “recording” has lots of information, I can sometimes keep more of the idea as I work through it. Then tinkering with it actually makes it clearer.

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Fixing the firework shows up in my writing as well as my singing.

Take this blog, for example.

The degree to which I tinker with a blog post and how much it is like or different from the original firework-thought intrigues, fascinates and often surprises me. More important (to me), it feels a lot like what happens when I improvise.

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Why does this matter?

Well, as I work on a latest improv project, I realize that it helps me to understand (because we know I like to understand things! *grin*) how I think and organize and integrate ideas and inspirations. Understanding has become a big theme in my improvising and teaching. And it’s a part of my creative process (regardless of the medium).

Catching that glimpse of an idea firework out of the corner of my eye and fixing the image in my memory so I can further examine and contemplate it to recreate or reinvent it has led me to all sorts of discoveries (like this one about how I like to work *smile*)

And, maybe taking some time to think about (or notice, if that’s more you’re cup of tea) how you like to work and create and organize and integrate could help you do the thing that you do better.

When I tell people that I teach voice, a surprising (well, surprising to me *smile*) number of them ask me what that means. That’s when I usually say “I teach singing lessons” or “I teach people how to sing.” But as I stand on the other side of another semester of teaching including the last middle school musical, I realize that it’s more than that.

See, I have discovered that teaching people to sing has a lot to do with allowing people to be themselves.

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I especially see this with young students. They want to sound like all those singers they love. They contort their young voices into imitations of what their favorite singers are doing. And sometimes it is successful, but it rarely sounds natural. Because that is not how their voices sound.

So we have to spend time learning what our “real” voices sound like. The easiest and most natural way each student can sing the note or the song or the exercise. And we often have to let go of an idea of how we want to sound to accept the way that we actually sound.

Let me be clear, this is not about dashing hopes or setting limits, this is about exploring the instrument each of us is given and finding the fantastic sounds each singer can create with his/her voice. Easily and naturally. One student might have to work slowly and for a long time at something that seems to come easily to everyone else. Another might have a flair for interpretation or improvisation. Every singer has something she wishes she did better and something he takes for granted that everyone else can do.

But I have come to understand that we have to love our voices for what they are, not what we wish them to be. And in doing that we learn to love our selves a little bit more.

I am fascinated and gratified to discover (and rediscover) how much of our identities are attached to our voices. That’s why my favorite way to meet singers is by singing with them. (And, it is part of why I started Songtaneous all those year ago.) I have a number people who I see rarely but know very well because we have sung together.

Singing makes connections and communities. And teaching voice always, always, always teaches me something about myself.

I didn’t perform much this spring so I was pleased to have the chance to flex my singing muscles a bit at our annual faculty recital.

In part, because my spring was very full and in part to push myself to keep practicing improvising in performance, I made the choice to sing by myself in the recital. I am glad I did. The Whitney Theater has a lovely sound system and I sank effortlessly into the sensation of being wrapped in the sound of my own voice.

When I teach improvising, I often talk about solving the problem or creating a problem to solve. At the start of this piece, you can hear me set myself the challenge of singing a well-known tune over an unknown (even to me) pattern. I even took a brief detour for a short story.
All in all, time well sung. *smile*