It’s always a welcome bonus to receive a testimonial from a very satisfied customer. Some people are always quick-on-the-draw to criticise, so words of praise are to be cherished.
A few days ago I received this e-mail which is printed in full, below. Totally out of the blue and written with all the skills of a literary expert. It’s well worth reading. Certainly, it made me feel very humble, but happy in so many different ways.
A Kind of Moving On
I stand tall and take a deep breath. The lilting sound track accompaniment begins to play but I am not yet centered and miss the first beat. Lloyd says: "Start again" … but this time with more support." I hold my hands under my diaphragm as he has taught me, expelling the air and singing with feeling:
"There’s been a change in me … a kind of moving on …"
It’s a lovely melody from Beauty and the Beast and the beautiful words seem to have been written just for me.
Way on the other side of the room Svengali waves his arms, directs me to hold a note … open my lips … lift my soft palate … let the words flow. He reminds me to direct the sound to the front of my mouth and while I’m doing all this … to breathe.
I want to giggle at the scene we create – me, an overweight diva with an audience of one elderly, but enthusiastic man – singing out my heart and soul on a summer afternoon in an apartment in Kfar Saba.
What the heck am I doing here?
It started when I turned 60 and I was panicked by a sense of time passing and the need to take charge of actualizing my remaining good years as best as possible. How many would I have left? What did I want to do with them? What would make me happy?
Though I liked my job, it wasn’t enough. I visualized myself dying and my boss reading her eulogy, saying something complimentary about my contribution to the work of the organization. It painted a reassuring picture, nice, but was it enough? With a finite number of good years in front of me and a sense of growing fragility, I asked myself what I wanted to do. Big question – What do I want?
I want to sing. I’ve always wanted to sing but stopped when my daughter’s mouth grew big enough to ask me to shut mine because I was giving her a headache. I’d have loved to have singing lessons but never thought I was good enough. Never thought I deserved to be trained to sing! Now, I didn’t care, I would learn to sing. Whatever my voice, I could learn to sing better.
Other people take up bridge. I would take up singing.
I put an advert on the Raanana mailing list and it didn’t take long before a friendly note came from Lloyd, inviting me to make contact. Hardly breathing, I made the call and found myself a few days later, hugging the loo at a shop across the road from the apartment, with a nervous stomach before my lesson.
I wish I could have recorded the first time I opened my mouth for Lloyd. The temerity of my voice … the lack of confidence … the stomach squelches which broadcast to all that I was not well inside.
Lloyd said we would start with b’reshit – meaning the basics, but I was so nervous and so literal – I thought he meant we’d start with something in Hebrew from the Tanach, so when we began singing ‘Caro mio Ben’ I was a little confused – it sounded like an Italian love song.
I sang the first note in my growing older voice. Then Lloyd demonstrated how it was to be done and I was entranced by the powerful sound he made which caused the whole building to vibrate.
I would have continued to come, week after week, simply for the pleasure of hearing him sing.
For the first six months I was filled with anxiety. I could only cope with lessons on afternoons when I didn’t work … so that I could practice beforehand and be free of outside tension. And could keep close to the lavatory.
I bought a recorder and taped myself singing; bad mistake. I sounded like my worst nightmare. I was embarrassed to practice at home lest my neighbors would hear – so I switched on the air-conditioning and closed the windows. Mostly I sang with my head buried in my clothes cupboard. I also sang on my daily walk through the park, when no one was around. There isn’t a soul who ever practiced harder than I did. What made me persevere through all this agony? I don’t know, but the image I had of myself in my weekly singing lessons kept a mischievous smile on my face and I kept going back to Lloyd for more.
Learning new skills is never easy, but long ago I discovered there is a learning curve and if one perseveres, one can count on finding light at the end of the tunnel. When I started singing lessons I knew nothing and was in a state of blissful ignorance. Then I grew increasingly aware of my lack of skill and this made me confused and even despondent.
At times, it seemed impossible for me to coordinate the many elements that Lloyd was asking me to pull together – talk about multi-tasking! I was aware that I was reaching the age when singers begin to retire and wondered whether I’d left it too late. With the passing months, I became more self-conscious – demoralized by the awful sound I seemed to produce no matter how much I practiced.
I read books – ‘Singing for Dummies’ was written for people like me and taught myself elementary music theory. Lloyd kept counting out the beats to the bar and I kept protesting I could never do math. The harder I tried, the more forced my voice sounded. My voice couldn’t make up its mind what it was – an alto, or a mezzo … a deep contralto or a breathless sound full of light and air. One day I was Barbara Streisand and the next Ella Fitzgerald and I wondered why I didn’t just opt for bridge like everyone else.
Then, one day Lloyd gave me a book of Broadway hits. "Maybe we should leave the Italian for a while," he suggested. "Let’s see how this suits you."
It suited me all right. Suddenly, I had an outlet – songs I could enjoy with no pretentions of becoming a classical singer. The book was a cornucopia of fun – filled with the old songs I heard in my youth, the wonderful songs one heard a few times and stuck in one’s head – and the treasury of music created to entertain us by Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Steven Sondheim and lately by Andrew Lloyd Webber. It was a mine of melodies I could sing and enjoy and which apparently suited my voice. Today, I have a repertoire of more songs than I can sing through a happy afternoon.
One thing I have learned in life is that you never know which will be the therapeutic moment that heals you. It could be your hour with a therapist. It could be a passing encounter with a kind someone who makes you feel truly special. For me, it has been discovery that I can sing and the musical interludes I have spent with Lloyd. Recently, he reminded me of my ambition to join a choir and encouraged me to take on my next challenge.
I love the song I am singing … there has indeed been a change in me … a kind of moving on. The story, Beauty and the Beast, is an allegory about transformation and change – of putting away the notions and indentities that once were appropriate, but now are no longer so.
By the time we reach 60 we’ve all been bruised and shaken up by life … we’ve experienced disappointment … illness … loss … there are so many challenges we have had to confront. For me, happiness comes from meeting life head-on, trying to understand my dreams and choosing to do the things that will bring me joy. It is a process of continually creating and recreating oneself; of taking an active hand in writing the story of my own life.
Standing in front of Lloyd, I sing:
"For in my dark despair
I slowly understood
My perfect world out there
Had disappeared for good
But in its place I feel
A truer life begin
And it’s so good and real
It must come from within
And I — I never thought I’d leave behind
My childhood dreams but I don’t mind
I’m where and who I want to be
No change of heart
A change in me."