My voice reveals who I am

As a music major and professional musician, your life is basically all music.  All the time.  You live in a constant state of learning, perfecting, performing, and accepting critique.  No sooner is one song learned, then it is on to the next.
Music comes from inside and expresses some of the deepest, most passionate, most loving, and most heart breaking emotions known to mankind.
When a musician performs a song or a piece, they are showing you their heart.  Watch closely and you will see it.  This is a truly vulnerable act and it takes great bravery.  I think most people don't realize this.  They often think we spend our lives practicing our music and that performing is easy.  For some it is, but all those years have entailed more than just practicing notes, fingerings, and technique.  We have established what music means to us, down to the very core of our being.  We know how we connect to the music emotionally and spiritually and how to relate our lives to what we play and sing.

As a singer, opening up my mouth and singing a song in front of other people is scary.  Honestly, it is often more scary than when I speak in front of a thousand people.  When you sing.. your voice is your instrument.  You can refine your technique and modify your vowels, but the instrument that you have is what you have.  There is no going back to the store and trading it out.  And so, singers accept critique from all over... learning how to apply it when necessary and how to let it roll off their backs at other times.

During my time in college, I have been in choir every single quarter and have taken voice lessons for a majority of that time.  Every quarter is a struggle to be confident, to challenge myself to even greater musical heights, and to continue strengthening my voice.  But each quarter is also a time where I once again open myself up and allow others into my heart through music.  Sometimes it doesn't go so well, sometimes it is absolutely uplifting.

I have noticed something though, that so often my fellow musicians, as well as myself, tend to base our definition of success upon what other people think or don't think.  If we make it into a certain ensemble or perform a certain piece, then surely we must be good.  But if we don't make it in, or we don't get to sing a certain song... then how easily we assume that we are a failure.  And then we fall into wallowing and depression.  I have seen this in my own life, time and time again.  The pain that happens after a perceived rejection.  Because for some reason we automatically assume that we were not chosen because we are not good.

This is heart wrenching, exhausting, and wrong.  I like to think that we are each unique in our musicianship, therefore we have certain niches to fill.  Notice I said certain niches, NOT all niches.  When we place every ounce of energy and emotion into one thing, eventually it will hurt us.  Hence the need for balance... especially in our identity.  Why can't we just sing and perform for the sheer love of music?  It doesn't happen every time, that is for sure, but in our seriousness and level of commitment to our art, we forget.  We forget about the carefree moments that music brings, we forget the sheer joy we experience during our favorite phrases in a song, and we forget that music is a universal language that others watch and understand and desperately want to connect to.

And so, next time you hear someone playing their instrument or singing, stop a moment and look for their heart, and thank them for being willing to share their gift with others.
And to my music friends, remember what true success looks like.