NATS Report

Tear-stained cheeks and blank, frightened stares--these are not the typical faces in this University hallway. The students performing in the annual competition for the National Association of Teachers of Singing range from the greenest beginners to seasoned music majors. 

For the less experienced and younger singers, this competition is not only the culmination of months of preparation and anxiety, but also a defining moment. They need to know: Am I good enough? They are no longer singing for their bathroom echo or for the teacher who encourages them weekly. They are singing for the best of the best: NATS members who may be professional singers or university-level vocal coaches.

After sleepless nights and hours poring over their music, students agonize over each forgotten word or off-pitch note. To perform less than your best feels like a failure of its own, whether you make the cut for the next round or not. Trust me. I ought to know.

Despite my traumatic loss of confidence last year, I decided it had been a wonderful experience preparing and memorizing and really trying to get songs just right. So I pulled myself back up and did it all over again--with a few caveats. I didn't want to compete. I just wanted to be able to prepare and enjoy the experience. So I entered the competition as a non-competitor and chose a different division. The "legit" division is for broadway songs, sung in the classical (as opposed to belt) style. This fit me perfectly.

As I entered the room where I was competing, I tried to swallow my nerves and remember that breathing is a prerequisite to singing. And fainting is generally frowned upon. So I smiled and said hello to the judges, asking where my friends could sit to watch. I handed them my papers and said, "Oh, I forgot to mark the top part, but if you could please mark non-competitive, that would be great."

One of the judges, a somewhat serious-looking man with a British accent, asked why I was entering non-competitively. I told him and the other judge, a beautiful, petite blonde without a British accent, that I had frozen in the finals last year and decided to just enjoy the experience this time. He got a puzzled look on his face and interrupted me. "I'm sorry, but I just don't understand. You made it to the finals last year. And this year you're not even competing?"

"Yes?" I answered. He wasn't satisfied. The judges asked what I had sung last year and said they recognized me a little. (Dang.) So I sang a measure or two of "Everywhere I Look" for them. The female judge said, "But that is good. You can sing. That was good." I thanked her and started to feel a bit pressured--but flattered. I told them, "I think I can sing pretty well. I tell people I can sing. I just can't perform."

So I sang. I didn't forget my lyrics. I didn't freeze. I also didn't nail it like I wanted to. The emotion for Memory was okay, but not spectacular. Some of the notes were a bit weak and I got a bit harsh or squeaky in places. Nothing traumatic, though, and it went well.

When I finished, the woman looked at me and said, "You realize you just performed, right? I don't mean you sang. I mean you performed." The other judge said, "What you just did with Memory, you can do with other songs. You can take that emotion and put it into other songs and really touch people's hearts. Don't think about you performing. Think about your gift touching other people." This was perhaps the highest compliment I could imagine. Then he said, "I'm going to make you promise that you'll come back and do this again next year and compete."

Luckily for him and unfortunately for me, I am a rather non-confrontational person and easily flattered, so I agreed. They encouraged me to really seek out performance opportunities during the next year so that I could become more comfortable with singing in front of other people. They suggested I find low-pressure places like rest homes, where people will clap and be thrilled no matter how nervous I am. 

When I saw one of the judges in a hallway today, she said to me, "We're going to hold you to your promise." I told her she's pretty much my favorite person in the world for being so kind to me about my singing. :)

Another very flattering moment was when somebody asked sheepishly if she could come listen to me perform. She had heard me sing at the recital on Monday and liked it enough that she wanted to hear me sing again. This is a far cry from the reaction I used to get: "Do you have to sing so LOUDLY?" or "Maybe you can sing in the other room, because you're just so LOUD."

As I sat down to listen to the finals today, I was surprised that I wasn't feeling comfortably smug that I didn't have to perform on that stage again. No. I was feeling sad--sad that I didn't take myself more seriously and go for it. As I listened to the others in my division, I realized that I could have been very stiff competition. I think the audience would have loved my rendition of Memory. But I'll never know.

What I do know is that my husband took seriously the challenge I threw at him a year ago after humiliating defeat: "Next year, I want to see you up there on that stage making a fool of yourself." He was there. He competed in the division that I was in last year. He made it through the first round. He made it through the semi-finals. And then there he was on the stage, right where I had been. Just him, some bright lights and a grand piano.

He did great and won 2nd place in his division. Our voice teacher said she was proud to tell people that he was her student. And the serious-looking Brit who ended up being my hero for giving me a vote of confidence (and a kick in the behind) leaned over to my voice teacher and said, "I would have given him first place."

That pretty well makes today close to perfect. What will I sing next year? I'm thinking, "It Might As Well Be Spring" and "On My Own" ... but there's no rush to decide. I just need to breathe deeply and take myself more seriously.