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We spend so much time depressed about the past or anxious about the future that we often miss the miracle of the present.
Every moment you get to spend with your voice should be treasured and experienced fully.
In this episode, John discusses the mindset of gratitude and awareness that will bring a new sense of joy to your singing and practicing.
Episode Transcript
Episode 162 – This Precious Singing Moment
Hey there. This is John Henny, welcome back to another episode of The Intelligent Vocalist. I do so appreciate you spending your precious listening time with me. Oh man, I got my first nasty comment on my theme song for the podcast. I’ve been taking the podcasts and putting them up on YouTube. There’s obviously no video so it’s a little program that puts a little squiggly audio line that people can stare at as they listen to the podcast and while it’s not a bulk of the listenership of the podcast, it does introduce the episodes to a few more people.
I’m getting on some episodes, maybe a couple hundred listens. Not anything big deal, but it’s just another way to expose people to the podcast. But of course YouTube has their critics, shall we say, and somebody said, “change this theme song, it hurts my ears”. And I actually kind of like my little theme song. I created it myself with a piece of software called Band in a Box, which is really cool, and I used it to create the backing tracks on my Boldly Belting program where I created these little mini songs to bridge the gap between exercises and actually singing songs. And I have these specifically constructed lyrics with intentional vowel sounds and consonant combinations and where the notes set to ease people into belting and singing very, very strongly. And I love the program. And for the theme song, I used a style called gypsy jazz and I came up with the cords myself. You enter in the cords into Band in a Box, and then it creates an arrangement and it gave me my little theme song, which I thought was kind of fitting up until now. And apparently somebody is dealing with ear pain because of my theme song. But even in spite of it, I apologize in advance, and take a couple of aspirin because I’m going to be keeping the song.
I just hit a little milestone for myself. I have been meditating for a little over a year and I’ve been using an app called Waking Up that was created by Sam Harris. And even though Sam is known for being a bit of a raconteur in politics and areas of religion, this has none of that. This is strictly just meditation. And I just hit 6,000 minutes of meditation. The app will keep track, so that’s 100 hours of meditating over the past year and I have to say, it has been life changing. And I don’t mean that in any clichéd way and it’s not that I’m suddenly living out all of my childhood dreams, but it’s just given me tools to better process what is going on, moment to moment, but more importantly to be able to stay in the moment and to increase the quality of my awareness. And the quality of your awareness moment to moment is really the quality of your life, what you are paying attention to.
If you are in a wonderful restaurant and your attention is on the table across from you that’s a little noisy and you’re finding that it is distracting and disturbing you, you are having a less than stellar experience. But if you can bring your attention back to the company that you are with and the taste of the food and the comfort of the seat that you are in, you have a very different experience. You’re in the same place, nothing’s changed, but the quality of your attention has changed and that’s what meditation has really given me and it’s giving me a more profound appreciation for life itself and for the events of life. And just the idea that some song is going to be the last song I ever sing. I don’t know what that song is going to be. When I sing it, I may likely not know that it’s the last song I will ever sing. But it’s coming and if I keep a little appreciation when I am singing a song to just know that this may be the last song I ever sing, how much more precious is that time singing? This may be the last practice session I ever do, the last lesson I ever teach, the last podcast I ever put out.
And rather than being some morbid, depressing thought, it actually sharpens and heightens the moment and it really makes you appreciate the fact that we are all conscious and alive right now in this moment. Because that was a whole lot of time on this planet when that wasn’t so, and there will be likely quite a lot of time on this planet after we are gone when us being alive will not be so. But right now, in this instant, we are here and you have, I’m assuming, a functioning instrument. You’ve not lost the ability to phonate. Even if you’ve gone through vocal issues, even if you’re frustrated with your voice, if you have an aging voice, there’s some damage. Your voice still works on some level and if you are blessed with relative youth and health in this moment, so much the better. But each one of us still has music within us and it is so easy in the stress of the day and allowing the mind to just ruminate on past failures or to stress about the future that we miss this moment.
We missed this opportunity. We go into the practice room already judging ourselves already setting up frustration for what’s about to occur. Maybe we don’t feel like it, maybe we’re just kind of pissed off that we have to practice at all. I don’t sound like this singer, this other person is getting better gigs, this person is getting better students, why am I singing anyway? All these worries, oh my gosh, am I going to experience vocal issues? Why is my voice tired?
Then comes the singer’s paranoia and our attention is a mess. It’s fluttering to and fro, it’s grabbing on to things and focusing on things that do us no good. Worrying is not going to do us any good. What we need to do is just appreciate the miracle that we are alive in this moment, that we have conscious awareness, and that we have the opportunity to sing. That we don’t live in some war torn, chaotic region of fear and poverty. That you are blessed to live in a time and place where you can spend some of your life making music, and making music in peace, and having access to instruction and to various podcasts and videos and private teachers, venues to perform. It’s a wonderful thing, and if you have the luxury of being able to take time out of your day, where you’re not having to stress about just having clean water, and to be able to sing and to work your voice and to extend your knowledge and to increase your facility, you are blessed.
And when you are in the practice room, take a moment to acknowledge that and take a moment to just still yourself and be in the moment with a sense of gratitude. And as you work your exercises, as you work your routine, allow your awareness to be in this precious moment. To pay attention to sensation, to pay attention without judgment to trouble spots, so that you can analyze them and find solutions to help smooth over the trouble spots. There will always be trouble spots. I mean, do you really want this instrument to be that easy? Do you really want it to take no work? Do you want it to not be a challenge? I mean it would be like a video game with only one simple level and then you’ve beaten it. If everybody could sing, if this was so easy, what value would it have to be able to do it at a higher level?
I think everybody can sing and everybody should sing. But to do it at a level where others want to stop their singing and pay attention to yours is something, and you should appreciate the difficulty, welcome the difficulty. It’s a wonderful thing. It’s a beautiful puzzle. It’s a challenge and the challenge is yours alone. Your voice is yours alone, your challenges. Even though we share common challenges, they tend to show up in each person in a slightly different way and you are constantly unlocking and building this ever changing instrument. As I get older, which is something the young me never really foresaw happening, and now it’s actually– it’s on, it’s happening, and having changes in my voice, I have to readjust and I have to work my voice in slightly different ways and I have to focus on different things.
And rather than living in the past and trying to shove old routines onto my voice and just increasing frustration, I prefer to be in the present, and to work my voice where it is at in this moment, not where it was at an hour ago or five minutes ago or just the note before, but in the present moment in the note in this awareness, while understanding that it is a gift to be singing. I’m not always going to have this gift. I can’t look at practice as drudgery. Practice is a beautiful gift, growing your voice is a beautiful gift. I look back on gigs that I did that at the time, the young me thought were beneath me or I didn’t particularly feel like doing. Maybe I was tired. And now that I don’t gig as much anymore, I really should have appreciated those final gigs.
I should have appreciated when I had my original project, when I would perform on the Sunset Strip and I was performing in these really legendary clubs, but I’d be worried about how many people showed up, I’d be worried about the next gig, I’d be worried about the sound rather than just being completely in the moment. And if I could do anything, I would just take back this calmer mind. I wish I had discovered meditation so much earlier. But what you can do is the next time you sing, be grateful. Take a moment to realize how truly lucky you are. And when you are practicing, be completely present. Don’t worry about what else you have to do that day, that’ll come regardless, but your time to practice even if it’s only 15-20 minutes should be a space where the past and the future do not intrude, where you are just fully present and fully aware and open to where your voice is, not frustrated that it’s not as good as it was yesterday.
But just be where it’s at. Be patient, take time. Allow your awareness to focus on the sensations and the sounds and the difference between when something felt more difficult or when it was easier. What little changes did you facilitate, what made the difference between it being difficult and easier? What balance really feels like in that moment, to just experience that, not stressing that your voice doesn’t currently go as high as you want or as powerful as you want, but allowing your voice to blossom in each and every moment. Give yourself that gift of non judgmental awareness and your voice and your mind will thank you for it.
Hey, if you want to know more about me, please visit my website johnhenny.com. You can sign up for my email list there. You will get advance notice on my newest books and courses. Again, I am currently working on my newest book. I was up again at 5am this morning to write, which I actually kind of weirdly enjoy. But just the quiet in the house, to just sit and type away, and I look forward to having you look at those words. Hopefully in the next, I’m shooting for early summer for a book and a new course release. More information on the course to come. So email readers will know about that first. Also, if you’ve been thinking about a career in teaching voice, please consider my Contemporary Voice Teacher Academy. You can just click on teacher training up at the top of the menu. And until next time, to better singing. Thank you so much! Bye bye.