Elgan speaks
...and her words thunder across the land

To give it up, or not to give it up; that is the question.

Friday, Sept. 5, 2008
10:25 a.m.
The house is very quiet these days, or at least it feels quieter. I made beds yesterday, beds that won’t be slept in for months, not until the kids come home for Christmas, and felt a welling up of emotion. I had a similar sensation as I was preparing to leave choir practice in order to rush home to make supper, then realizing that it was just for two I would be cooking. The house is really no bigger than before, but suddenly it feels huge.

Classes have started and a new school year is in session. Luckily I saw the head of the Spanish programme yesterday and she signed my form so that I could take beginning Spanish. Otherwise the class was full. It’s good to know people. The text book and other course materials set me back over $100, and I pitied full-time students who have a lot less money than I do.

In choir we’re performing Bach’s Christmas Oratorio in November. The bad news is that the second performance is on Hubby’s birthday, his 50th, and he was pretty upset when I told him that. I’ll have to think of a way to make him a party anyway. After all, he made me a really nice one.

I have one singing student for sure, a girl who studied with me a year ago, then took a year off of lessons and wants to resume. When she told me, I was so happy I thought I would cry.

But I was in a foul mood yesterday for a bit. In a week, Hubby’s jazz trio is scheduled to play at a restaurant in Montreal, their big Montreal debut, but the bass player called him up and said that he’d taken a better-paying gig for that night. These guys are really living hand-to-mouth; they don’t have the advantage of a high-paying day job like Hubby has. So my husband was really pissed off for a while, until he was able to find someone else, a jazz pianist, to take the bass player’s place. He even said that I could sing a few numbers and I told him to give me a list of pieces and I would get to work on them.

It just so happens that the faculty recital is in three weeks’s time and I’m going to do some tunes with Hubby, so I’ve started practising the three “Alls” (All or nothing at all, All the things you are, and All of me). He said I could do those at the restaurant. Then I had the exact opposite reaction he thought I would have. I said, “Only three? I can’t do more? It doesn’t seem like it’s worth my while to go all the way to Montreal just to sing three songs.” He thought I would be overjoyed that I was getting even this opportunity! Thus ensued another of our frequent arguments (I really don’t know how we’ve stayed married for 26 years since it seems like we’re always fighting about something) wherein he bawled me out for never practising and how the last time I got up to sing with the band it was pretty bad and he was afraid of that happening again. I countered with the fact that I couldn’t hear myself because of the terrible sound system last time, how I’m expected to get up and perform without ever rehearsing with the band so I never know what people are going to do, and I wasn’t warmed up because I wasn’t expecting to be asked to sing anyway.

We ended up going through his set list and, as well as the three songs mentioned, there are a couple more in the second set that I can sing as well. He made me promise that I would practise, and I will. But I felt like I was being given a sop and he felt he was being overgenerous. Misunderstanding is so easy. Then I made a poster for him with Photoshop. I didn’t say anything then, but now that I think about it, that in itself is worth the opportunity to get up and sing a few more pieces.

Sometimes I do seriously consider throwing in the towel, giving up the vox altogether. It would be so easy. I hate practising, especially when I don’t have any motivation to do so. When there’s a concert coming up, I’ll work my tail off, but otherwise it just slides. This is why I have never made anything of myself as a singer. I’m just not passionate enough about it to really try hard enough. Part of that could be self doubt, the feeling that I’m not really good enough, and of course if I don’t work at it, I’ll never be good enough! About the only thing I think I’m really good at is teaching, and yet I don’t have a great success rate at retaining students because I actually expect them to learn something instead of going away with a puffed up sense of themselves.

Maybe I should just give up. Is it worth the aggravation I put myself through? I love performing, especially with other musicians. But how much opportunity do I get to do that? I’m not ambitious enough to make the opportunities, so maybe I don’t really deserve them after all. There are so many other things I can do, and do well, that I probably wouldn’t miss singing. On the other hand, I think something inside me would always be weeping if I gave it up completely.

I wish I knew what to do.



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