Sing Loud, and Proud, and Wrong

My instruction this week from my vocal teacher is to sing loud and proud and I'll probably be wrong on more notes than usual.  It's not bad advice since I tend to sing really quietly for fear of screwing up.  I'll never be able to sing louder until I do it and discover where my problems are. 

But it also makes me think about stage managing in an odd sort of way.  I went to a party on Saturday night at the home of a friend with whom I worked at People's Light and Theater Co (out in Malvern, PA).  I didn't stage manage there, I worked in the Education Department.  But, stage managing called again and I couldn't stay away.  I spend half my life trying not to stage manage; I love doing it but the hours suck.

At this party, I ran into another stage manager and we traded war stories which sent me down memory lane.  I've been lucky enough to have had several people tell me to my face that I am a good stage manager.  When I hear this compliment I always chuckle because I think to myself, I hope I'm at least half way decent with all the mistakes I made.  Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the compliment since an SM's work is not always noticed.  But I am one of those creatures who learns by fucking up.  And sometimes, fucking up big. 

Here's a quick example: years and years ago, while I was still in college, I held an entire audience in black for 90 seconds because I hadn't bothered to check with backstage to make sure the actor was ready to get into his place.  He was still in the dressing room.  To this day, if a cast has to get into place in a blackout, I have to time it because I will jump the gun.

And, I still screw up occasionally (at least I hope it's only occasionally), and I think to myself, Seriously Kate, really?  You didn't know better?  But it's always a learning process with new situations to encounter and (bringing it all back home) new notes to sing.

So what I find pretty funny is that I am more than willing to mess up as a stage manager when it affects other people but I'm too scared to sing loudly in the comfort of my own home. 
But now it's time to get over my bad self.  If you hear anything weird coming out of Glenside, PA, in the next few weeks it's just me singing, loud, and proud, and probably wrong.

The Return of the Cocktail

So I suspended my blog a couple of months ago because I felt it was stale and I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with it. As I mulled it over, I realized that I wanted a blog to chronicle some new personal goals I have set for myself -- learn how to sing, run a marathon, and become a phenomenal stage manager. Not only will it be great to have a record of what I'm doing in order to reach my goals, I hope it also motivates me to keep trying, even on bad days.

While all this pondering was going on, I was also stage managing Romeo and Juliet at the Arden. The show closed yesterday and it was quite successful. A solid production with some great acting. Unfortunately, working on the show was incredibly difficult for me. The schedule was brutal, especially the performance schedule. We did several student matinees (which meant arriving at the theater at 8 am) as well as evening performances--sometimes in the same day. In between the shows, I had to go home, see my kids for a hot second, make dinner and then return to the theater.

In addition, I didn't enjoy all the cast members as I had during previous productions. I felt that several of the cast members had no respect for me at all. It seemed they just wanted me to stroke their ego and fetch them things. It was very dispiriting for me. I'm sure it didn't help that I stopped running for a while due to weather and a running injury. I do think exercise helps us keeps things in perspective.

But the show itself was good and hopefully as I reflect on the experience I'll learn something from it. Most importantly, it's over. Now, it's on to more singing lessons, more running (yup back on the streets, more on that later), and another show in a couple of weeks. I'll leave you with a clip of our production of R and J:

Friday Night Live

So in my last post I promised more about my neighbors. The best way to begin perhaps is to describe a typical Friday night. I'll introduce the neighbors slowly over a few posts.

So on Fridays, after dinner, we often gather at The Chef's house. He lives 2 doors down from Brian and I. He's got a pool - which makes his house the gathering place during the summer as well. Every weekend, all summer long, we sit on the back porch, sometimes swimming, sometimes chatting, usually with a beer. He's called The Chef because he's always grilling something up.

Alas, he is selling his house soon and moving to nearby digs. What the rest of the block is going to do this summer is anybody's guess. If you come down our street in July, you might find us wandering aimlessly like zombies, drink in hand, sunglasses on, holding a towel.

But during the colder months we usually sit around his kitchen table, swapping stories from the week, having some beer, etc.

Around 10 or so, Brian brings out his guitar. Brian is a pretty good guitar player and has a wide range of songs under his belt. By 10 pm, we all believe that we are pretty good singers with a wide range of lyrics under out belt; but we're not and we don't.

We start out by requesting a song and Brian starts to play it.

We sing the first verse minus a couple of words and we're not bad with the chorus and then we break down:

"Hmm, lala, oh yeah, don't we sing..."

"No, we already sang that"

"Who knows the words?"

"I thought you did"

That song fades and we beg for another song. All those songs we can sing word for word in the car are completely out of our brain by 10:15 on a Friday night.

And yet, it doesn't stop us from trying.

I always request that Brian sing Blackbird by The Beatles. On our honeymoon in Paris we sat at a cafe and watched a guy play guitar on the corner. After a few songs, Brian got up to chat with him and the guy offered to let him play. And Brian played Blackbird so it's a sweet memory song for me. But I don't know all the words to it.

One night, The Chef's girlfriend, Twiggy (you can probably guess why she's named that), took a phone movie of all us singing. I thought she should put it on YouTube. We'd be an instant hit! We could do a little webseries, filming our Friday night band. People would flock to their computers to watch us make absolute fools of ourselves.

C'mon, admit it, you'd watch.

Adventures in Song

I can't sing. I've been tone-deaf my entire life. Well, technically I'm not tone deaf because I can tell when two pitches don't match but I can't tell when my pitch doesn't match. I'm missing something between my head and my ear so that when I sing, I think I sound great. I can tell I don't sound great because everyone else in the room cringes.

Learning to sing has been one of those 'it's on my to-do list' items. But when I turned 40, I realized that I had better start crossing stuff off that list or I'd never get anything done. The price of singing lessons always held me back though. I didn't want to spend $20 or $30 on a weekly lesson when I can't even match pitch. So, during Candide I asked the musical director if he had any ideas. He suggested software that could tell me if I was on pitch or not. Brian looked into it and found me "Singing Coach." It's a program to help me learn to stay on pitch. It's a bit cheesy with Mic, the singing microphone introducing all the lessons.

I start out by humming pitches and I'm quite good at that which really boosted my confidence. My downfall comes when it's time to sing songs. The first song, Hot Cross Buns, was disaster. The computer shows me when I'm too sharp or flat for each note and I was all over the place. But I'm trying to stick with it. I keep telling myself to give it time; I've spent 40 years on the wrong note, I won't become singing sensation overnight. Today Mic the singing microphone, tomorrow, Broadway! I don't think so. Besides, I'd have to learn how to act and dance as well.

But I am wondering, how long does it take to teach an old dog new tricks?