Today is better than yesterday
Aug. 3rd, 2005 12:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bjarvisI spent much of yesterday alternating between depression and anger but am in a somewhat lighter mood today, largely thanks to a good night's sleep and not insignificant quantities of chocolate. My recent anxiety is entirely related to square dance calling, primarily singing calls.
Let me preface that with a bit of family background: I had a pretty good childhood overall (as much as I can remember... it was a while ago) but the key hang-up deeply implanted for as long as I can remember is that public singing is a character defect. Allowances could be made for, say, a church choir as that's both devotional & a group activity, but to pursue a spotlight for oneself for the viewing/listening pleasure of other people was declared to be profoundly immodest, self-aggrandizing and prideful. In short, my family isn't big on it and it was actively discouraged for as long as I remember.
For most of the past year as I've been studying calling, I could work around the issue. While a caller on stage is working in a spotlight, it's the dancing that's the focus with the caller as facilitator and mechanism to enable the dance. For reasons I can't fully explain, singing calls feel emotionally different than patter calls: my mental tricks on myself don't work in this scenario even though logically there is no obvious difference but vocal style. I'm making some progress on this but the slow pace of improvement is frustrating.
The biggest problem though is simply my utter lack of vocal experience & technique: with almost no prior experience attempting to sing, even in private, for 38 years, I have no idea how to do it effectively. Most friends describe singing as like riding a bike: you never really forget how. But this is a bicycle I've never ridden before and, until this year, didn't miss in the least.
Trying to control my volume, air flow, breath timing and still hold a tune while simultaneously remembering the lyrics and sight-calling the dance has been extremely difficult. Most folks I know already have the first four down automatically; conscious effort is only required to juggle the latter two balls instead of all six. I've been trying to keep all six working simultaneously and failing more often than not.
I'm also a perfectionist. If you've ever seen anything from me marked "draft" or "work in progress," it's either a lie or I was coerced: nothing goes on public display until I'm finished. I've been working on my singing while driving to & from work and some at home: I couldn't bear the embarrassment should someone hear my mistakes. At least I get a couple of hours alone at home daily before Kent comes home.
Dayle has been very supportive as I work on calling but he's gradually stepping up the pressure to keep improving. I haven't felt or seen any progress since May and the lack of momentum has really pissed me off. I don't deal well with frustration, less so failure. After a particularly amelodic, badly timed and otherwise horrific practice Monday night, I was ready to call it quits: I understand square dance calling better than ever, but there is some magic element which eludes me.
To be truly good at something requires a certain essence or poetry in the soul. I have the mindset of a bureaucrat and the creative soul of a rock: this yields a comfortable living, but I've realized recently it also means there are some things which will remain beyond my reach. Creeping middle age carries the cruel knowledge that there's not enough time left for the infinite possibilities we dreamed in our early years, and some hard decisions must thus be made and truths accepted. I'll never be a great writer, I'll never truly master any of the languages I've studied and while I'm generally a competent systems administrator, I'll never be an extraordinary one.
Monday night, I was ready to admit I'll never be even an adequate caller either.
I skipped Baltimore's club night last night (Tuesday). I couldn't face either Dayle or the floor of dancers.
Working on square dance stuff was the last thing I wanted to do, but I had promised Kent that since I wouldn't go to club night, I would at least work on digitizing the newly arrived stack of caller records from eBay and sifting through some choreographic notes I had accumulated. (I suppose that's one minor virtue in my favour: I do keep my word.)
After listening to the stack of 25 records, I selected six which I could see myself potentially using. Once converted to MP3 format and copied to my iMac, I listened to them again and tried calling along with them. A funny thing happened: I didn't suck as badly as Monday night. It wasn't great and still needed a great deal of polish, but it wasn't anything like as horrible as the previous night. I tried again with the same recordings in the car this morning as I drove to work. Again, not great, but better than Monday.
I may yet have to admit failure at some point, but I'm feeling better today that any point of capitulation is in the future. I'm not sure if I'll have re-assembled myself in time for club night on Thursday (tomorrow), but I'll make that decision closer to that time.
Let me preface that with a bit of family background: I had a pretty good childhood overall (as much as I can remember... it was a while ago) but the key hang-up deeply implanted for as long as I can remember is that public singing is a character defect. Allowances could be made for, say, a church choir as that's both devotional & a group activity, but to pursue a spotlight for oneself for the viewing/listening pleasure of other people was declared to be profoundly immodest, self-aggrandizing and prideful. In short, my family isn't big on it and it was actively discouraged for as long as I remember.
For most of the past year as I've been studying calling, I could work around the issue. While a caller on stage is working in a spotlight, it's the dancing that's the focus with the caller as facilitator and mechanism to enable the dance. For reasons I can't fully explain, singing calls feel emotionally different than patter calls: my mental tricks on myself don't work in this scenario even though logically there is no obvious difference but vocal style. I'm making some progress on this but the slow pace of improvement is frustrating.
The biggest problem though is simply my utter lack of vocal experience & technique: with almost no prior experience attempting to sing, even in private, for 38 years, I have no idea how to do it effectively. Most friends describe singing as like riding a bike: you never really forget how. But this is a bicycle I've never ridden before and, until this year, didn't miss in the least.
Trying to control my volume, air flow, breath timing and still hold a tune while simultaneously remembering the lyrics and sight-calling the dance has been extremely difficult. Most folks I know already have the first four down automatically; conscious effort is only required to juggle the latter two balls instead of all six. I've been trying to keep all six working simultaneously and failing more often than not.
I'm also a perfectionist. If you've ever seen anything from me marked "draft" or "work in progress," it's either a lie or I was coerced: nothing goes on public display until I'm finished. I've been working on my singing while driving to & from work and some at home: I couldn't bear the embarrassment should someone hear my mistakes. At least I get a couple of hours alone at home daily before Kent comes home.
Dayle has been very supportive as I work on calling but he's gradually stepping up the pressure to keep improving. I haven't felt or seen any progress since May and the lack of momentum has really pissed me off. I don't deal well with frustration, less so failure. After a particularly amelodic, badly timed and otherwise horrific practice Monday night, I was ready to call it quits: I understand square dance calling better than ever, but there is some magic element which eludes me.
To be truly good at something requires a certain essence or poetry in the soul. I have the mindset of a bureaucrat and the creative soul of a rock: this yields a comfortable living, but I've realized recently it also means there are some things which will remain beyond my reach. Creeping middle age carries the cruel knowledge that there's not enough time left for the infinite possibilities we dreamed in our early years, and some hard decisions must thus be made and truths accepted. I'll never be a great writer, I'll never truly master any of the languages I've studied and while I'm generally a competent systems administrator, I'll never be an extraordinary one.
Monday night, I was ready to admit I'll never be even an adequate caller either.
I skipped Baltimore's club night last night (Tuesday). I couldn't face either Dayle or the floor of dancers.
Working on square dance stuff was the last thing I wanted to do, but I had promised Kent that since I wouldn't go to club night, I would at least work on digitizing the newly arrived stack of caller records from eBay and sifting through some choreographic notes I had accumulated. (I suppose that's one minor virtue in my favour: I do keep my word.)
After listening to the stack of 25 records, I selected six which I could see myself potentially using. Once converted to MP3 format and copied to my iMac, I listened to them again and tried calling along with them. A funny thing happened: I didn't suck as badly as Monday night. It wasn't great and still needed a great deal of polish, but it wasn't anything like as horrible as the previous night. I tried again with the same recordings in the car this morning as I drove to work. Again, not great, but better than Monday.
I may yet have to admit failure at some point, but I'm feeling better today that any point of capitulation is in the future. I'm not sure if I'll have re-assembled myself in time for club night on Thursday (tomorrow), but I'll make that decision closer to that time.
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no subject
Date: 2005-08-03 07:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-03 10:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-03 09:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-03 10:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-03 10:32 pm (UTC)It occurs to me that we haven't seen you in far too long.
no subject
Date: 2005-08-03 11:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-04 03:52 am (UTC)Like I said, too long ago.
no subject
Date: 2005-08-03 11:01 pm (UTC)Have you seen the ASL sign dictionary for Mainstream square dancing? I got a copy many years ago, and we actually used it for a brief period when we had a non-hearing woman dancing with us. One of our chorus interpreters was actually in the square dance group at the time and signed some of the calls to her...it worked pretty well.
As for the other thread, I imagine this frustration will pass...
On an encouraging note, I know a number of callers that really don't have voices at all, don't have particularly interesting choreography, don't have much of a dance knowledge outside of square dance, but keep people happy and have long-lived clubs of their own.
On an constructive note, consider the teaching aspect rather that working towards being the consummate entertainer with the voice of a god. Being a perfectionist is fine, but don't beat yourself up about it if you don't think you ARE perfect.
I don't remember your voice being unpleasant on the one thing I heard you do. It takes lots of practice to get timing down...I know you've heard it dozens of time to NOT use the timing on the called side of a singing record. I'm not in the minority when I say that when I listen to music from the tape/cd services that I don't ever listen to the called side at all.
On an affirming note, when I picked up the microphone at age 30 to start this journey, I had never sung at all. Never. After 21 years of teaching/calling square dance and 7 years of gay men's chorus, I don't consider myself a singer of any particular merit, but I did find I could carry a tune!
If you want to yak voice about all this, my number's 'in the book' :-)
no subject
Date: 2005-08-04 01:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-04 01:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-03 11:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-04 01:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-04 03:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-04 12:26 pm (UTC)Make it easier on yourself ...
Date: 2005-08-04 05:18 am (UTC)I've found that calling singers off of cards is much easier, and allows me to relax and concentrate on singing and entertaining the dancers, rather than trying to remember what I should call next.
The dancers certainly don't care as long as they keep moving and have a good time. If you insist on varying the progression figures ... write a bunch of different figures into the card.
This probably goes against your perfectionist grain ... but I'd rather dance to a caller was trying his best to be entertaining and enjoyable, than one who was trying to be technically perfect.
Think about it, and don't be so hard on yourself.
-- Hugs!
Re: Make it easier on yourself ...
Date: 2005-08-04 01:26 pm (UTC)This sounds pretty horrible, and it was at first: the pressure and stress were severe for the first few months. Still, we have made considerable progress since then and I'm no longer dreading stress-filled club nights in the same way. Instead of a continuous plateau of terror, I'm now down to occasional-but-spectacular spikes of anxiety (like last Monday & Tuesday).
Visible progress was easy in the first year since we had so far to climb. I'm frustrated now in part from my inability to see meaningful progress in the past couple of months despite considerable time & effort expended. Rationally, this may mean that I'm using inappropriate benchmarks, mismeasuring my own progress, using incorrect vocal techniques, am physically incapable of singing decently, or I'm just not caller material (or any combination of these). So many variables, so little time.
The real bitch of it is that my problem is so damned public. If it were almost anything else, I could do the additional research on my own schedule or shelve the problem long enough to wait for an epiphany with no one the wiser. In this instance, I get to have my foibles & flops aired for display every Tuesday and most Thursdays. Is that excessive ego, concern for the club, dancers & professionalism of the calling, just a mess of other issues or some combination? I suspect I'm too close to the issues involved to rationally analyze the possibilities with accuracy.
Kent might have insights but as long as we sleep in the same bed, it's probably not in his best interests to critique too harshly. :-)
Re: Make it easier on yourself ...
Date: 2005-08-04 01:46 pm (UTC)Deep issues, deep issues. ;-)
Re: Make it easier on yourself ...
Date: 2005-08-04 02:24 pm (UTC)I'm slowly coming to realize that what we call issues in some situations are good survival strategies in others: it's in the context. Being an anal retentive perfectionist control freak as a project manager is a good thing, but becomes a huuuuuuge issue at calling and/or dealing with, say, my parents.
The Plan of Attack
Date: 2005-08-04 01:51 pm (UTC)Short range:
1. Drill a particular singer repeatedly.
Last night and today, I've been working on "Here I Am In Dallas" (Rhythm Records 103) repeatedly, calling it at full volume until I can get through it entirely without stumbling or stuttering. At home I set up the sound system and called with the mic to simulate the true experience as best I could. I will use it tonight at DC's club night to see (a) if the brute force approach has any virtue at all, (b) to test my own focus while monitoring the dancers, and (c) to see how a different environment may (in)validate my rehearsal methods at home.
Medium range:
1. Meet with Dayle over coffee/breakfast/dinner/whatever away from square dancing to analyze & evaluate.
2. Plan the next 90 days of effort.
2a. Isolate a particular component for special effort for at least two calling sessions (vocal technique, call timing, new get-outs, new singer figures, etc.)
2b. Select 5-7 new singer records to widen repertoire. Use these in (2a) above.
2c. Record audio of each performance in (2a). Keep the better of each.
3. Re-evaluation of status 11/5/05.
3a. Compare written notes and audio recordings from (2a) with final performance of October. Evaluate discernable improvement (or lack) in each area of focus.
3b. Optional: ask assistance of trusted dancer to evaluate qualities for additional correction.
3c. Bonus effort: videotape calling session to more closely evaluate call timing and caller comportment. Downside: Will need to borrow a camera & tripod.
Like I said, mindset of a bureaucrat...