Sometimes You Have to Sing It

This year’s spring concert music for our choir includes a setting of the folk tune, Bring Me Little Water, Sylvie arranged for women’s voices. And, to my horror, it involves a rather complex pattern of claps and foot stomps called body percussion.

Oh. My. God.

I am uncoordinated. For me, moving my body in any performative way in public is like asking someone afraid of public speaking to give a 30 minute speech to a crowd of strangers. At the last rehearsal, I felt like I was right back in junior high gym class when I was the only one who could never shoot the basketball through the hoop. Rhythm is by far my weakest musical skill. And now I have to do this clap stomp, left-right show choir thing while singing the piece from memory. Everyone has to be perfectly synchronized, and one mistake would stick out like a sore thumb. I do not exaggerate when I say I have been frustrated to the point of meltdowns over this and questioned whether I should remain in the group.

I have practiced the pattern literally hundreds of times. When I get up in the morning and when I lie in bed at night and can’t sleep. When I’m waiting in line or sitting in the car. It has become a thing. My husband, rhythmic genius that he is, has provided remediation at a level that would work for a fifth grader. I sent a panicked email to the director who replied with kindness, encouragement, and helpful suggestions. I have slowed the YouTube how-to video down to the point that the woman demonstrating looks like she’s having some kind of a slow-motion seizure. And still—failure.

Today, I said to myself, damn it, I’m just going to try to memorize the song. Scrap the motions, and, worst case scenario, maybe I can stand in the back or offstage and sing it. So all afternoon, I worked on memorizing the tune. Then, while pulling clothes out of the dryer, I stopped to sing the song again and just thought I’d try the motions. And I could do it. All of a sudden, standing there in my laundry room, it came together because I was singing.

My point is that sometimes, the left-brained, perfection-or-else, overthinkers among us need to just stop and sing the damn song. Stop analyzing and critiquing and beating ourselves up and just let it fly. In this case, focusing on the music instead of what beat the left stomp was on, freed me up enough to feel it, rather than force it.  There’s something to be said for backing off a little.

I don’t know if I’ll be able to do this perfectly in performance when the time comes. Possibly not. But I made progress today because I went with the music. I stepped out of the you-are-a-dorky-loser mentality and went with what I know I can do reasonably well, which is sing. Sometimes you have to find a different path forward if the one you’re on keeps leading to dead ends.

Sometimes you just have to sing it.