So this year I was able to attend Sasquan, this year's Worldcon. I and a few Eugenites did a concert. It was only 30 minutes, and it was on Thursday, so most people weren't even there yet....
Anyway, concert went well. Usually at cons you get a riser in a conferance room for a stage. There we had a REAL LIVE STAGE STAGE!!! That was probably one of the best things to happen to me in years. Let me explain...
My mother was a performer and music teacher and vocal coach, etc etc etc. I started getting up on stage when I was 3 years old, singing Practice Makes Perfect from the Christian kids song album Welcome To Agape Land, with a cardboard keyboard slung around my neck. And from then until I was 20, it never stopped. I played cello and piano, I was in choirs and musicals and talent shows. I never had stage fright ever. I used to love the stage. LOVE IT.
There is a certain high you get when you and the people on stage with you are in sync and rocking it, and the audience has caught that energy and amplified it and flung it back at you. It is the BEST high ever.
When I was married, the bastard filled my head with soundtracks like "what makes you think people want to hear that" and "if you have to practice then you aren't very good, are you". 8 years of that, and for some reason stage fright started creeping in. I wasn't able to get that high, because I wasn't able to relax and enjoy being on stage any more. I was petrified that everyone in the audience was thinking what my ex voiced on a regular basis. Every mistep on my part petrified me then, and instead of continuing on like it didn't happen, I would break down in tears and not able to do anything. Sometimes I couldn't even leave the stage. But I worked on it, and worked on it, and slowly I have been getting back to where I was. Up till now, I haven't been able to completely get back to that comfort on stage I used to have.
At this con, I did. Being on a real stage, with a mic and lights and amphitheater style seating....it was like a switch was flipped, and none of the last 20 years happened. I relaxed. I enjoyed myself. I had FUN! I felt the change in the audience when I sang Big Blue Box. And it was EXHILERATING!!!! I NEED more. The stage has turned into a Siren, and I am unable to resist her song. I get excited just thinking back on that performance. I know it wasn't perfect. But it was transformative.
It also helped that when we were doing mic check, after I sang Rose, Rose, someone if the first row said "Oh...she's a singer." That made me feel good. Cause I AM a singer. My voice is not opera level, but it is not a bad singing voice, when I can breathe and don't think too much about what I am doing wrong. When I was on that stage, I felt everything relax, and my voice sounded the best it has in years. And it just corroborated what I have felt all along....my brain gets in my way.
I wish I had a video fo that performance. It would have been nice to see it from the audience point of view.
But....maybe not. Maybe it is best that I remember this performance as it is. If I watched video of it, I would start tearing it apart and anylizing it. What could I have done better? What should I do differently next time? And that would maybe erase all the feel goods I have about it.
I just....I can't help feeling that if I can just hold onto that feeling until my next performance, I will be OK. That maybe be magical thinking, but I really, really, really just want to hold on to that. Hard and tightly. And carry it on stage with me everytime I perform, no matter what kind of stage it is.
Anyway, concert went well. Usually at cons you get a riser in a conferance room for a stage. There we had a REAL LIVE STAGE STAGE!!! That was probably one of the best things to happen to me in years. Let me explain...
My mother was a performer and music teacher and vocal coach, etc etc etc. I started getting up on stage when I was 3 years old, singing Practice Makes Perfect from the Christian kids song album Welcome To Agape Land, with a cardboard keyboard slung around my neck. And from then until I was 20, it never stopped. I played cello and piano, I was in choirs and musicals and talent shows. I never had stage fright ever. I used to love the stage. LOVE IT.
There is a certain high you get when you and the people on stage with you are in sync and rocking it, and the audience has caught that energy and amplified it and flung it back at you. It is the BEST high ever.
When I was married, the bastard filled my head with soundtracks like "what makes you think people want to hear that" and "if you have to practice then you aren't very good, are you". 8 years of that, and for some reason stage fright started creeping in. I wasn't able to get that high, because I wasn't able to relax and enjoy being on stage any more. I was petrified that everyone in the audience was thinking what my ex voiced on a regular basis. Every mistep on my part petrified me then, and instead of continuing on like it didn't happen, I would break down in tears and not able to do anything. Sometimes I couldn't even leave the stage. But I worked on it, and worked on it, and slowly I have been getting back to where I was. Up till now, I haven't been able to completely get back to that comfort on stage I used to have.
At this con, I did. Being on a real stage, with a mic and lights and amphitheater style seating....it was like a switch was flipped, and none of the last 20 years happened. I relaxed. I enjoyed myself. I had FUN! I felt the change in the audience when I sang Big Blue Box. And it was EXHILERATING!!!! I NEED more. The stage has turned into a Siren, and I am unable to resist her song. I get excited just thinking back on that performance. I know it wasn't perfect. But it was transformative.
It also helped that when we were doing mic check, after I sang Rose, Rose, someone if the first row said "Oh...she's a singer." That made me feel good. Cause I AM a singer. My voice is not opera level, but it is not a bad singing voice, when I can breathe and don't think too much about what I am doing wrong. When I was on that stage, I felt everything relax, and my voice sounded the best it has in years. And it just corroborated what I have felt all along....my brain gets in my way.
I wish I had a video fo that performance. It would have been nice to see it from the audience point of view.
But....maybe not. Maybe it is best that I remember this performance as it is. If I watched video of it, I would start tearing it apart and anylizing it. What could I have done better? What should I do differently next time? And that would maybe erase all the feel goods I have about it.
I just....I can't help feeling that if I can just hold onto that feeling until my next performance, I will be OK. That maybe be magical thinking, but I really, really, really just want to hold on to that. Hard and tightly. And carry it on stage with me everytime I perform, no matter what kind of stage it is.
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