Blogatron

The Karaoke, It Gave Me the Flashbacks

Last night found me at Mary Mary's All-Star Karaoke drinking silly rum-based cocktails, listening to hits of the 80s sung with wildly varying skill levels, and accidentally robbing the cradle.* A snippet of awkward small talk with Eric, while slow-dancing to Courtney's fabulous rendition of "Purple Rain:"

Eric: So, where do you go to school?
Hilatron: I'm out of school.
[Pause, as Eric took a more careful look at his dance partner]
Eric: ...How old are you?
Hilatron: Uh, twenty-seven?
Eric [with a touch of panic]: Twenty-seven?!? You don't look twenty-seven!
Hilatron: It's the pigtails!

It was a great night, and I can't say enough nice things about the karaoke, the hilarity of the karaoke fanatics regulars, or the retro appeal of the Milky Way Lounge and Lanes where it all goes down. However, I've been thinking about why I didn't want to perform. I don't have a great voice, but I can carry a passable tune and I have a near-endless collection of vintage clothing from which I could cull an ensemble to suit almost any song in the book. Yet the thought of singing in front of people fills me with terror. I believe this feeling can be traced to a single demonic source.

During my sophomore year of high school, I decided to take voice lessons. My school had a posh music program which provided weekly private lessons as part of the curriculum, and it seemed like a fun thing to do.

I'm sure it would have been, had I not pulled Mrs. Annie Devlin-Nagel** as my voice teacher.

Mrs. D-N was...odd. Fashion-wise, she favored frizzy, overpermed hair in a messy half-updo, giant glasses with pastel frames, and brightly colored silk dresses with poufy shoulders and little belts, reminiscent of Tootsie. Upon first meeting her, one got the impression of a slightly scattered, effervescently friendly woman with a high, piercing voice. She gave weird compliments, made statements which in no way related to the topic at hand, and was touchy-feely in that way some people have where they are almost violent: hugging too hard, grabbing with fingernails instead of touching with fingertips. Nonetheless, you would have assumed that she couldn't hurt a fly, unless it's possible to non-sequitur a fly to death.

You would have been horribly, horribly wrong.

The first sign of trouble came quickly. Mrs. D-N had me sing a song for her at our first lesson, and quickly declared me a mezzo-soprano. This was curious, as high notes didn't seem to be my forte and I had often been asked to fill in the tenor section in an informal choral group I'd joined. However, she was the expert. I resolved to try.

And try I did, straining my vocal cords to reach notes that just wouldn't materialize. Although my vocal range seemed unable to expand upward, the lower registers proved more malleable - I gradually realized that I was losing my low notes due to disuse. By talking to her other students, I learned that by some miracle, all of Mrs. D-N's randomly assigned students were either sopranos, if female, or tenors, if male. How lucky for her that all of her students had upper-register voices - especially considering that Mrs. D-N herself was a soprano! How curious! What are the odds on that? It was also lucky for her poor students, many of whom had, like me, ignorantly believed that we were altos and basses until she came along to straighten things out. We were indeed blessed.

As I stumbled my way through each week's lesson, squeaking and sputtering out the impossible notes, Mrs. D-N began to drop a comment here and there. "You know, Hilatron, choirs always need...filler voices." "I'm surprised that you take German...your pronunciation here is so - unique." "It's so good that you don't feel a need to compete for the spotlight when you're singing. What self-confidence you must have that you're content to stay in the background!" Every time I opened my mouth to sing, another gem of helpful advice was waiting for me.

Sometimes, Mrs. D-N would stop the regular lesson to "have some fun." "Having fun" meant that we would sing together. Her theory was that if there was someone to take over the spotlight I so clearly dreaded, I could relax and really get into my mezzo-soprano identity. Mrs. D-N certainly had no trouble hitting the notes I struggled with; she belted them out in a sharp, piercing soprano that reverberated in the tiny practice room and made me wince in pain. Sometimes, "having fun" took up most of the lesson. Sometimes, I would just stop singing altogether. It wasn't like either of us could hear my squeak over that knife-like voice anyway.

One day, as I struggled with a ghastly scales exercise that made dogs howl all over the neighborhood, Mrs. D-N reached out and pinched my side, hard. I stopped singing and stared at her. "No, you're supposed to keep singing!" she cried, throwing her hands up in exasperation at my obtuseness. "I was just trying to surprise you into letting your voice free," she explained. "I had a voice teacher when I was a girl who used to poke us with a pin when we weren't projecting enough. That certainly got us to sing out." She gazed wistfully into the distance, remembering the good old days. I backed away, eyeing her nervously and looking out for any sharp objects.

It took just one school year of the Mrs. D-N treatment to convince me that not only should I not quit my day job, it would be a service to humanity if I were to avoid ever singing in public again.

Karaoke, however, has opened my eyes. Singing is not just for the Mrs. D-Ns of the world. There is room for the imperfect, for the off-key, even for the non-soprano. We may not be destined for a record deal, but that's never what I wanted anyway. I just want to do a silly dance and carry a tune while I do it, preferably in front of a crowd of supportive, if drunken, fellow revelers.

In retrospect, I'd also like to note that Mrs. D-N was a poorly-dressed, worse-socialized, passive-aggressive washout with a transference complex, an upper register that could cut glass, and a vibrato you could drive a truck through. Not that I'm hating. I just wanted to offer a little helpful feedback.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'll be off polishing my rendition of "Suspicious Minds." Anyone want to sing backup?

*Please note that I am not on the prowl, as it were, having the charming Josh as a more than satisfactory companion, thank you very much. However, it is my belief that when a gentleman asks a lady to dance, it is that lady's right to accept, no matter her dating status, as restitution for years of hugging the wall at high school dances, college parties, and the like.

**Names changed to protect the loopy, but carefully chosen to reproduce the appropriate verbal rhythm.

Posted by hilatron at May 14, 2003 10:32 PM