My Year, My Voice

Alright, so I've finally come to a decision, and this blog is going to help me stay positive through the struggle ahead.

First a quick overview of the troubles I've been having. A week before we opened for RENT 2 years ago I lost my voice almost entirely. Luckily I was able to get it back in time for the show, though it was never really perfect through the run. Since then I've felt that I'm in a constant war with my voice. From working at a call center when I lived on a steady diet of Riccola, to just not being able to speak after my day had finished. I finally went and saw a speech pathologist last summer who had to retrain me on how to speak. Apparently my speech pattern was damaging my vocal chords making it a real challenge to sing.

Now to today. My speech patter is significantly better, I have very few issues speaking and rarely have issues where speaking becomes a chore. However a new problem has finally become the target of my frustration. I feel like I can't sing anymore. I've never had to think so much about what I'm doing when I'm singing, and yet still not yielding anywhere near the vocal quality I once had. I told Gilbert the other night that without singing I don't really know who I am. Sounds dramatic yeah, but my degree is in (musical) theatre. I've always sang nearly every second of the day, but these days I haven't been enjoying it. One of my new years resolutions was to do more shows than last year, well this voice issue is the major wrench in that plan. So here's my solution:

I'm currently studying with a voice teacher who was recommended by my speech pathologist. I have had the mentality of dreading each lesson and then leaving feeling unsuccessful. I talked with her last time about her apparent frustration at my lack of progress. She told me that she was actually seeing quite a bit of progress, but that she was being extremely careful with me as she understands that I'm relearning how to sing. She doesn't want me falling into damaging habits that will result in worse problems than last time. After this talk I had on of the most successful lessons in years.

So here's the goal. We move to NYC in about a year and a half. before we go I am going to have a put on a cabaret. This means I have 18 months to regain both my ability to sing and my confidence in my voice. In my last blog I said that I will be posting at least once a month here, so if nothing else I will be giving monthly updates on my progress with my voice. My first update regarding this will hopefully be some good news about the auditions for Legally Blonde which is coming up!

Anyways... There's the blog for the day! Here's hoping for a year of great progress and successes!!