Ep. 11: Don't be afraid to rebuild your voice from ground zero

Today we're discussing that feeling of losing your singing mojo! In Judaism we learn that destruction is always for the sake of rebuilding. Same goes for singing, and we'll be discussing that concept of rebuilding your voice.

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Transcript

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Hello, Thank you so much for joining me today for an episode of the Jewish singer podcast. In light of the nine days, I'm going to forego the opening music and just get right into it. So thank you so much for being here. Thank you for your support of the podcast. And if you've been enjoying. The episodes, please, please rate the podcast and share it with your friends. I really appreciate it. All right, so we are in the nine days right now in the Jewish calendar, and this is a time of serious destruction and mourning for the Jewish people, as I'm sure, you know, And even through this mourning, we are taught that this is a time to build. Right? There's, I think in Halakhah, it talks about learning about the Beis HaMikdash during this time, learning about the specifications of the Beis HaMikdash, you know, seeing it in our minds and in our hearts as if we are building it. So interesting. And we're coming up on Shabbos Chazon, where we're going to have a vision, a revelation of the third Beis HaMikdash. We are right now in the rubble. We're in the ashes. We're sitting with that feeling of destruction, but we're told to keep our eyes on the prize. Redemption is coming and we need to do what we can to build. so I always like to incorporate what's going on in. The air, you know, and what's going on in the times with how I'm relating to life as a singer and life as a teacher. So, as I said in last week's episode, I'm not suddenly just wanting to be a Torah teacher, but I do think it's so important for us to like, carry these ideas into our work. That's what makes us unique as Jewish singers. I want to be the type of teacher that helps students grow to reach their full potential as an artist. And that includes their relationship to spirituality and Judaism and not just their vocal technique. So that's why I think this, these ideas are so important to talk about, and it's got me thinking about times in my life. When. I was really broken and had to rebuild. So the most visceral memory that comes to mind is when I had my son almost 19 months ago now, and I had to have a C section because he was very large. And, um, it was not something I was planning on doing or wanted to do even, but it was advised to do. And. The recovery was the most brutal thing I've ever experienced. So much pain that getting out of bed to go to the bathroom or feed my baby, just like literally had me in tears. And I felt like a complete shell of a person really, there was nothing, nothing like this I had ever experienced. And I remember like trying to get up and sitting on the edge of the bed, trying to get the strength to stand up, help me, like, what am I going to do? And just feeling like that there had been such a, a shvira in my life, such a shattering in my life, in my circumstances, in my body, that I couldn't even recognize or remember what it was like to be the person that I have, that I was literally a week before that. I was now a new person. I was in a new state. I was a different person. And I remember in that moment, feeling grateful or hopeful of like, okay, there's been a shattering here. And. I can only go up, I can only go up from here, you know, I can only build from here. And as much as I was in still so much pain, there was, um, there was a hope there. And so the recovery with the pain came slowly, obviously, and went away Baruch Hashem. And I eventually got back to singing and teaching and I realized that my voice was different. It was harder for me to sing the way that I used to, and it felt more labored and I didn't have the same muscle coordination. So I definitely was noticing. Different sensations when it came to trying to produce a sound that was strong, that for me before just felt a little bit more normal and natural. And suddenly I was, you know, trying to sing like I knew how to sing. And I no longer knew how to sing like I did before. Because my Mechanism had changed. My, my muscles had changed. I did not have the same coordination and my muscles changed because, well, I had just gone through another pregnancy, of course, and my baby was very big and I had gained weight and I was like, everything was on my abdominal muscles are really stretched out and then during a C section, they literally cut through your, your muscles through deep muscle. And it's actually a very major surgery. We just kind of think like, Oh yeah, she had a C section. And I know some people even opt for C sections and like more power to you. If that's that works for you. And that's great. But like, I remember thinking after I cannot imagine why anybody would volunteer to do this. And then just being like told afterwards, like, here, just take some Acomal. Anyways, I digress. So it's a major surgery and it's been a very slow process of rebuilding those muscles through singing. So just because of my awareness of my body as a singer, I was able to. Figure out what that looked like, through actually singing. And it's gotten easier over time. I did go back to dancing a little bit. I was in a show last year, but I have to say, I do wish that I had paid more attention to it and been a little bit more proactive, earlier on in the process, I only just started doing like Pilates to target The specific muscles and areas that need to, to strengthen very recently, like this week, don't tell anybody. Uh, and so I'm working on strengthening those particular muscles that will help my singing, but also just, being fit and feeling better in daily life. It's very important. You know, your, your fitness in your body actually really affects your singing more than we would think. We are vocal athletes. We need our entire body to do what we do. But the beautiful thing about this is that I've been really working on my technique, my vocal technique during this time with my teachers and coaching myself through this, and I got to build up my vocal technique from scratch. Kind of, it was a reset for me that brought my attention to areas of weakness in my voice and what I could do to really give me a more sustainable technique for the long haul. And I found a new relationship with my voice and particularly with my chest voice. Which after the surgery really felt kind of rocky and unstable. And I was pulling up a lot of weight because I wasn't using my support muscles. I didn't have the support I needed. And so there was like extra tension and strain and slowly I've been able to fix that and free that up. And, and now I have. A usage of my voice that is actually even better than it was before, because I was able to hone in on those weaknesses in my voice that did exist, but wasn't so prominent that I needed to really delve into, or maybe it wasn't so obvious to me at the time. And this got me thinking about all the singers and voice students that I have spoken to that tell me they used to be able to sing high. You know, I used to have such a powerful voice. I used to be able to sing up to the heavens. No problem. I didn't used to be this breathy. My chest voice didn't used to feel so wobbly. They're all of these complaints that sometimes, and I'm talking about women, you know, women, my age, women in childbearing years. And I think some of it can be attributed to just like the changes that happen in our bodies as we, number one, as we age and your voice does mature as you age. For women, it's about age 30 that it reaches full maturity. And, uh, but obviously after that, your voice is changing as well. You'll notice like an older woman has a much lower voice. And that's not to say that, that you necessarily lose range as you age, but things shift, right. Hormones. Um, like I'm talking about right now, physical, physical differences in the way that we're able to use our muscles, due to surgeries or weight gain or whatever it is. And so these students, I hear from them that there's this deep negative feeling about losing what they used to have, losing the sound that they were able to have, and the voice that just, it seemed to be so easy before, I mean, even if it wasn't perfect, there's something about how it used to be that was better. Right. And, and so now there's this, there's this feeling of like. I lost something. You know, and that's actually, it's a hard feeling and there's this ickiness technical term, ickiness about seeming like you have all of this experience. You know, maybe you were even in shows when you were in high school or college and, or you sang all the time and you have all this experience and singing under your belt, but then seemingly nothing to show for it. Because what's going on right now is not working for you or not feeling good. And there's maybe even a bit of a tendency to stick our head in the sand and be like, okay, well, I guess this is just my voice now. I guess this is just how it is now. And you might even feel a little hopeless about whether or not you can go back or fix it or move forward or be where you were. And that's hard. That's a hard place to be in. And you can probably already hear the connection that I'm making, to this realm of our lives as singers to our world, b'gadol and ourselves as Jews. We could sit in our shame, we could feel, uh, guilty and bad and just sad about the reasons that the beis haMikdash was destroyed, about reasons why we are in a war right now or why we don't have Moshiach, like, dai already. Right. For those of you that don't speak Hebrew, dai means like enough. Um, you know, we could just so easily like lay down. And cry about it. And so we're seeing here even in the nine days, we're being told to cry about it. And at the same time, we're being told to look to the future. We don't get to just sit and cry. We also have to move forward and rebuild and look towards the future. It's coming. You know, we can't just sit here, we can't just accept that this is how the world is now, okay, anti Semitism exists, and we're just gonna wait to perish chas v'shalom, no, that's not what we're here for. Jews persevere, and we build, and we create, and we celebrate life. And with your voice too, I want to, you know, make the comparison that it takes humility and courage to say that you want to rebuild, to remember what you used to have to, to be in that state of like, okay, I, I, I don't know what to do. This is, this feels like nothing's working. You're in that state of destruction, and to say like, okay, but I, I do have faith that I can get there. To have faith in yourself in the process that you can rebuild and get to somewhere beautiful. You each have that in you. Don't forget that the destruction is only for the sake of rebuilding. We know this in Judaism, right? And you can always rebuild. You're not stuck. You're not a lost cause. And in the rebuilding, you'll be better than you ever were before. I really believe that. So I hope that was helpful. I hope that gives you a little bit of chizuk to know that if you are in this state of feeling a little bit lost or hopeless about your voice, It's never hopeless. And if you would like some help with the specifics of what you can do to help rebuild, I would be more than happy to work with you. I'm going to leave a link in the show notes to book a lesson. If that's something that interests you and thank you so much for tuning in and don't forget to share this episode with your friends, if you enjoyed it. We should know only Simchas and we should merit to see the ultimate rebuilding the coming of Mashiach and the third beis HaMikdash. Please God. Be well and happy singing.