Let's Start A Band
When I was six, I desperately wanted to take ballet classes. I loved the music, the tulle, the dancing, everything.
Like any sensible mother responding to a young girl's fervent wish to become a ballerina, my mother signed me up for piano class instead. Her reasoning was "it is still something with music and at least you won't destroy your body over it".
She had been a gymnast when she was young and still felt it in her joints so she knew what she was talking about.
Anyway, the piano wasn't my big love, but it got me into music. It was my entry ticket to schools with special music programmes where I discovered that I didn't like the work of playing an instrument but LOVED the work of using my voice.
Everything I find tedious about playing the piano — the learning new songs, the going note by note, the practice, the repetition — I love about singing.
Oh, and how I wanted to be in a band!
I never really had the guts to start one, though, and besides, everyone who sings wants to be in a band and you need other people to be in a band with and they usually are already in a band.
It never occurred to me that I could be the musician. I also didn't think of the fact that you get better at the "being in a band" bits that you suck at by, well, being in a band and practicing.
Then, I got a little older and suddenly thought that now it was too late to be in a band. I remember 22-year-old me seriously telling my dad that "I am way too old for being in a band to be worth it".
Well, I am in my early thirties now and happy to say that it feels great to be in a band! I am definitely not too old. I love working on new music with Simon and I am getting better at the "being in a band" bits. Who knows, maybe I’ll make a cameo as “piano” on one of our albums. For now, I am enjoying recording vocals and being my own background choir.
Along the way, I keep discovering new things about my voice, my creative process, and how I collaborate. For example, our newest song makes a lot of use of my lower register. Not only did I discover that I have one, but it has also extended by several notes downward. Quite the feat for a light mezzo-soprano (my official classification).
Two years ago, I would have firmly believed that creativity can only happen in person and now, here I am, sending files back and forth and enjoying a half-digital, half analog process.
We wrote most of the song in a remote session over skype on a day where we could not meet because the whole town was flooded and I could not leave the house. We also do remote recording sessions where I sing and record and Simon directs me over Skype.
Sometimes, it takes some unusual times for us to realize that we can have what we want.
We can start a band in our thirties, write songs without a "creative environment", and do the work we want to do in circumstances that are way less than optimal.
We can try new things anytime.
Oh, and before you leave, here is the song:
