Do you hear what I hear?
I was chatting it up with a weightlifting friend yesterday who said they happened to stumble upon my music studio instagram page. During our conversation I found out that they have a friend who enjoys singing and sings A LOT but has an issue with singing flat. This singer friend also talks about how they have taken formal voice lessons to help develop their voice. However, my friend was expressing frustration that this friend of theirs didn’t seem to realize how much of an intonation problem they had.
I thought this was a very fun and fascinating conversation to be having with a weightlifter. It’s not the environment I thought I’d be discussing the topic of intonation but here I was putting on my teacher hate as I warmed up for my lifting session. It got me thinking about how we truly do not hear ourselves as others do. I went on to explain to my frustrated friend that it takes a lot of time and practice to ignore how you sound TO YOURSELF in order to move into the next level of your vocal practices. This is why it is good to meet with a professional voice teacher so you have a set of trained ears listening to you and guiding you.
A few weeks ago I had a discussion with a choir member at my church about how you’ll never truly know how you sound. You cannot listen to yourself as you sing and except to hear all the color and richness to your sound. Also, if you do focus on listening to yourself you’ll most likely restrict the color and richness in your sound. So much of what we do as singers is based on sensations, body awareness/posture, and feedback from an instructor to help us develop the voice to its fullest potential. Even with recordings we are going to be missing parts to our sound that a live audience would hear. I discouragingly informed my choir member friend that sadly we will never truly know how our voice sounds to others.
When I was a younger singer this thought would discourage me. I can never step outside my body and do a check to see if that was the most beautiful sound. Listening back to a record may help give me a better idea of any intonation problems but it still doesn’t share all of the information my voice teacher and audience will receive. However, the older I get the more I find this to be a true blessing. My purpose of training the voice is so we can develop skills that will enhance how to share and express this art. Is beauty really captured in a perfect on pitch sound? I don’t think it is. No, the beauty is in genuinely giving away your voice so the people listening can become connected to the art you’re conveying. The practice we do to improve our vocal abilities gives us a wider canvas to paint on and more colors to paint with. It gives us more options to sing musically.
If being unable to hear myself as others hear me means that I have more to offer in my art, then I’ll take that over wishing I could blot out every funky note for the sake of perfection. In the meantime, I’ll just keep diligently chipping away at improving my vocal skills and musicality so I have more to offer in my performing.
-Laura
