My solo went very badly.
It was a song I have sung many, many times before. I know it by heart, so I stood up with no music and sang it a capella. People were talking, but once I started singing they responded in the usual way — with apparent astonishment.
I don’t know why people always look surprised when I sing, but this has always been the response from people who aren’t real familiar with my singing, so I was reassured that things were going as well as usual. I sang the first couple of lines, and then went up to do the first bit of flashy ornamentation — and my voice cracked.
This never happens to me. I have a really reliable voice. My brain is not so reliable. I have forgotten words, missed entrances, and lost my place in a song, but I have never had my voice fail me in the middle of a song.
Naturally, what you want to do in a case like this is sit down and give up. Not an option, though. If you have painted or knitted or written something and you mess it up, you can redo it. I suppose if you were playing some instrument and a string broke or something, you could stop and fix it. But if you are singing, you just have to keep going.
That is not the end of the trouble, though. I was singing a gospel song which depends for its charm on expressive, free singing, and for its power on flashy ornamentation. But once my voice cracked, I was too afraid it would do it again, to be able to relax and sing the song properly. I smoothed out the lines and skimped on the high notes, and it just was not very good.
I guess the people who had heard me run through it before church heard the song done properly, but the rest of them just heard me butcher it.
My fellow choristers told me how good a job I had done in the choir room when we were changing after the service, but I said, “Don’t say that. It was terrible. If you say ‘Good job’ now, I will never be able to believe you in future.” The director — fortunately, he made it back from Vicksburg in time for the service so I didn’t have to pretend to conduct — said something kind about allergies.
Oh, well.
I’m sorry.
I had a huge solo once in high school. My first solo in 9th grade. I was picked over seniors and was so nervous. The highest note in the solo, I completely ruined. I kept going, without any more mistakes, but I felt like an ass anyway.
I’m sure it’s not as bad as you think.
I often get that surprised reaction. Yesterday, actually, while I was walking baby Isaac around and around, I was stopped by a man driving by. “Hey, I hear you have a great voice,” he said through the open passenger window. “Steve says you have an amazingly large voice for a girl your size. I don’t know where he heard you. Will you sing for me?”
The answer was obviously thank you, but no I will not sing for you. Isaac sang, though.
Chanthaboune is right, it was probably not as bad as you think. Things like that always seems worse to the performer than to the audience. A ‘bad’ performance from you would probably still be an above average performance for those not you. ‘Butcher it’ is unlikely.
So give them refunds on their tickets. : )
You have my sympathy for the Voice That Cracked — I know all about that. For most of my life, like you, I had a voice that was absolutely reliable. If I didn’t happen to have severe laryngitis at the time, I knew without question that all I had to do was open my mouth and sing. And then that all changed, so that I don’t dare sing any more except when I’m home by myself, because there’s no way to know WHAT my voice is going to do if I try. You have a lot of years (decades worth of years) ahead of you before your voice stops being reliable, and my guess is that the reason for your problem during the solo is either (a) that you’ve been working far too hard, or (b) that you opened your mouth and inhaled a cloud of pollen. Either way, you have my sympathy, and you get thirty points for not sitting down and giving up.
Ouch! That’s hard. I’m with you, I hate when I mess up and people tell me how great I did…..but then again, I’ve also learned the my idea of “great” is much more perfectionistic than other people’s versions of “great”! I also tend to think that all people of the artistic/creative/musical sort have this perfectionistic view.
I remember a little girl that was in my daughter’s talent show one year, she ended up winning that year, and her mom and I were talking afterward. Her mom said she loved putting her daughter in local talent shows because she could mess up and no one in the audience would notice. She pointed out that during that winning performance, her daughter had actually missed three of her notes. I had to admit that I didn’t even notice it because I guess the rest of the performance was so good. Ironically, I had the exact same experience the next year when my daughter won despite the fact that I picked out at least 10 mistakes that she and her partner had made in their duet. Missing notes, getting off tune and not hitting the high notes. Apparently, I noticed, but no one else did because they won first prize and everyone came up afterward to talk about how wonderfully they did! I guess “greatness” is in the eye of the beholder!