After years of assaulting the eardrums of my friends, fellow patrons and assorted drunks on Karaoke Night at my local watering hole -- and after realizing how important it is to try to make the world a better place -- I have decided to take singing classes.
I'd thought about this for years. When I retire, I should . . . Sometimes that sentence might end learn Spanish, sometimes go on a trip around the world, sometimes take up origami, but more often than not it was take singing classes.
What prompted me to make the move now, dozens and dozens of years before I'm even eligible to retire, was the encouragement of one of my fellow singers on Karaoke Night at that local watering hole. I'll call him "Noah," because that's his name. Noah is a teacher at a newly opened non-profit performing arts academy in that well known birthplace of the stars, Corona, California.
Now, I realize that when Noah is encouraging me (or anybody else) to sign up for Introduction to Singing, Adult Jazz Dance, or any of the other courses this place offers, he's actually just drumming up business. I am not foolish or vain enough to believe that this will bring me the adoration of millions by the end of the summer. Surely that will take at least six months.
But I do understand that, even though I have been lifting my voice in the brotherhood of song for nearly 20 years now, I have absolutely no training whatsoever. I don't know how to breathe diaphragmatically. I don't know how to sing in my "head voice." I can't harmonize. I am incapable of singing softly; I can only belt. So even if (and this is a big "if") taking a singing class doesn't lead to crooner superstardom, what can it hurt? I might enjoy Karaoke Night at my local watering hole even more. Better yet, the audiences there might enjoy it more, too.
So off I went late yesterday afternoon to Curtain Call Performing Arts Academy to sign up. Noah graciously gave me a tour of the place, which is still under a fair amount of construction but which will, upon completion, incorporate a dance studio, a costume shop, a piano recital room, a children's play area, and a 99-seat theater. I already think of it as the Chip Bowl.
Then he had me fill out the application, which called for me to state my age and put down the month, day and year of my birth. Well, I put down the actual month, day and year of my birth, but as for age, I wrote in "39." If they want to know how old I really am, goddammit, they can do the subtraction themselves.
Shockingly, my application was accepted immediately! And so Noah turned me over to the staff singing instructor, Jessica, to "scale" me or something like that. No, scaling is what you do to fish, isn't it? Maybe it was "do a range" on me. What she wanted to find out was how high I could get (check me out on a Friday night) and how low I could go (I'm blogging about my singing lessons, how much lower could anyone go?).
Like everyone named Jessica since the death of Miss Tandy, this Jessica is young and beautiful, and also six months pregnant. Jessica handed me a piece of sheet music and asked me if I knew what one particular little black hamburger printed on it represented.
"Um, that would be an 'A.'"
"And do you know what kind of a note that is?"
"Um, that's an eighth note."
"Good. You can read music."
Oh, yes, in exactly the same way a functional illiterate can read a stop sign. Just enough to get past the driving test. But it was sufficient to satisfy Jessica.
Then she moved to her Casio keyboard and played a note. She asked me to sing it back to her.
Well, that's not as easy to do as it sounds. When it comes to shopping, I'm a gatherer. When it comes to singing, I'm a hunter. But I tracked down the note she was playing eventually, and then we went up the scale, tone by tone. And none too far, either, let me tell you.
Then we went back to that first note and went down the scale. You won't be surprised to learn that, these days, it's easier for me to go down than it is for me to get up.
Then she played three or four random notes at a time and asked me to sing them back to her. I'd circle around those notes, zero in on them, and then flatten them good. Either it's a short test or she just gave up, because suddenly, boom -- I was done.
She felt the need to discuss me with Noah. This couldn't be good.
"Well, he's a bass-baritone," she started.
A bass and a baritone? You mean, I'm twice as bad as I thought?
"He goes from C to the F above middle C."
Is that my range, or my high school phys-ed grades?
"At first, I was thinking he should take the Introduction to Singing class, but now I'm inclined to believe . . ."
Noah finished Jessica's sentence. "Private lessons?"
Jessica: "Yes."
Noah: "Mmhmm."
It was like standing in the doctors' consultation room as the specialist told my G.P. that, sure enough, my condition was both acute and chronic, and amputation couldn't be avoided.
Private lessons? How will we tell the children?
After a little more discussion, though, along with an accounting of the pricing (lessons just happen to cost more than the class) and a review of the syllabus (and my humble protestations that I really don't know anything about anything), the prescribed course of treatment went back to: "You should take the class."
As an added bonus, by paying for the class in advance, I am also entitled to one free month of tap-dancing lessons! Please, hold your applause.
Needless to say, I not only signed on the dotted line and paid in advance, I immediately went home and cleared a place on the mantle for my Tony Award.
The first class is Monday afternoon at 5:30. The semester ends with a recital (of songs from the 1930s and '40s! right up my antique alley!) on Friday, August 22. Realistically, I should have an agent by Labor Day and be able to start my national tour before Christmas.
And to think I was going to wait until I retired . . .
I'd thought about this for years. When I retire, I should . . . Sometimes that sentence might end learn Spanish, sometimes go on a trip around the world, sometimes take up origami, but more often than not it was take singing classes.
What prompted me to make the move now, dozens and dozens of years before I'm even eligible to retire, was the encouragement of one of my fellow singers on Karaoke Night at that local watering hole. I'll call him "Noah," because that's his name. Noah is a teacher at a newly opened non-profit performing arts academy in that well known birthplace of the stars, Corona, California.
Now, I realize that when Noah is encouraging me (or anybody else) to sign up for Introduction to Singing, Adult Jazz Dance, or any of the other courses this place offers, he's actually just drumming up business. I am not foolish or vain enough to believe that this will bring me the adoration of millions by the end of the summer. Surely that will take at least six months.
But I do understand that, even though I have been lifting my voice in the brotherhood of song for nearly 20 years now, I have absolutely no training whatsoever. I don't know how to breathe diaphragmatically. I don't know how to sing in my "head voice." I can't harmonize. I am incapable of singing softly; I can only belt. So even if (and this is a big "if") taking a singing class doesn't lead to crooner superstardom, what can it hurt? I might enjoy Karaoke Night at my local watering hole even more. Better yet, the audiences there might enjoy it more, too.
So off I went late yesterday afternoon to Curtain Call Performing Arts Academy to sign up. Noah graciously gave me a tour of the place, which is still under a fair amount of construction but which will, upon completion, incorporate a dance studio, a costume shop, a piano recital room, a children's play area, and a 99-seat theater. I already think of it as the Chip Bowl.
Then he had me fill out the application, which called for me to state my age and put down the month, day and year of my birth. Well, I put down the actual month, day and year of my birth, but as for age, I wrote in "39." If they want to know how old I really am, goddammit, they can do the subtraction themselves.
Shockingly, my application was accepted immediately! And so Noah turned me over to the staff singing instructor, Jessica, to "scale" me or something like that. No, scaling is what you do to fish, isn't it? Maybe it was "do a range" on me. What she wanted to find out was how high I could get (check me out on a Friday night) and how low I could go (I'm blogging about my singing lessons, how much lower could anyone go?).
Like everyone named Jessica since the death of Miss Tandy, this Jessica is young and beautiful, and also six months pregnant. Jessica handed me a piece of sheet music and asked me if I knew what one particular little black hamburger printed on it represented.
"Um, that would be an 'A.'"
"And do you know what kind of a note that is?"
"Um, that's an eighth note."
"Good. You can read music."
Oh, yes, in exactly the same way a functional illiterate can read a stop sign. Just enough to get past the driving test. But it was sufficient to satisfy Jessica.
Then she moved to her Casio keyboard and played a note. She asked me to sing it back to her.
Well, that's not as easy to do as it sounds. When it comes to shopping, I'm a gatherer. When it comes to singing, I'm a hunter. But I tracked down the note she was playing eventually, and then we went up the scale, tone by tone. And none too far, either, let me tell you.
Then we went back to that first note and went down the scale. You won't be surprised to learn that, these days, it's easier for me to go down than it is for me to get up.
Then she played three or four random notes at a time and asked me to sing them back to her. I'd circle around those notes, zero in on them, and then flatten them good. Either it's a short test or she just gave up, because suddenly, boom -- I was done.
She felt the need to discuss me with Noah. This couldn't be good.
"Well, he's a bass-baritone," she started.
A bass and a baritone? You mean, I'm twice as bad as I thought?
"He goes from C to the F above middle C."
Is that my range, or my high school phys-ed grades?
"At first, I was thinking he should take the Introduction to Singing class, but now I'm inclined to believe . . ."
Noah finished Jessica's sentence. "Private lessons?"
Jessica: "Yes."
Noah: "Mmhmm."
It was like standing in the doctors' consultation room as the specialist told my G.P. that, sure enough, my condition was both acute and chronic, and amputation couldn't be avoided.
Private lessons? How will we tell the children?
After a little more discussion, though, along with an accounting of the pricing (lessons just happen to cost more than the class) and a review of the syllabus (and my humble protestations that I really don't know anything about anything), the prescribed course of treatment went back to: "You should take the class."
As an added bonus, by paying for the class in advance, I am also entitled to one free month of tap-dancing lessons! Please, hold your applause.
Needless to say, I not only signed on the dotted line and paid in advance, I immediately went home and cleared a place on the mantle for my Tony Award.
The first class is Monday afternoon at 5:30. The semester ends with a recital (of songs from the 1930s and '40s! right up my antique alley!) on Friday, August 22. Realistically, I should have an agent by Labor Day and be able to start my national tour before Christmas.
And to think I was going to wait until I retired . . .
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