Hello! Thanks for coming to read my random and strange thoughts.
As many of you know, I am a full time musician, making a living in this crazy world of music by doing several different things. Teaching guitar, piano, voice and theory lessons, doing wedding music (I have always felt I could relate to Adam Sandler in the Wedding Singer, although I have never serenaded anyone on a plane), performing different instruments on other people's projects, my own singer-songwriter income; including but not limited to performing, radio play, school performances, music therapy sessions, facilitating workshops, good old fashioned CD sales, etc. And I also do things like lead worship at various places. I just got home from one of these events this afternoon actually.
However, something that is sort of a new development with me is the pain that I have been feeling in my vocal cords when I sing. It feels like a serious problem because I am a singer. I learned in singing lessons when I was a kid and also tell my own students ALL THE TIME that if they feel pain when they sing they need to stop singing. So here I am, trying to not be a hypocrite, and put myself on an intensive vocal rest for a few days. It is super hard to do this when you are trying to make a living in the way that I am trying to make a living. But damaging my vocal chords permanently is not worth a pay cheque.
I should mention I also saw a doctor today and he looked down my throat and in my ears and said everything looked good. So that is good news. The pain is here because my vocal folds are telling me it's time for a break - this week has been extensive as far as how much I have sung. I tried to rest my voice in the past couple of weeks but only for hours at a time. The folds seem to need more time to heal than that. So I am officially on vocal rest - don't call me! lol. Who am I kidding? Nobody calls me on the phone anymore!
So here I am, trying not to sing OR talk, writing a blog to the eyes that will read this. I hope if you take anything away from this, it is to take care of yourself. Also, I am learning nobody is going to do that job for you. To be honest, I feel incredibly nervous about contacting all the people I have to contact to tell them I won't be seeing them/singing for them/talking to them this week. I don't like to let people down. I don't know why I think this is any sort of let down though. I'm just setting boundaries for myself and my vocal cords, because this is about longevity.
Ok enough about the cords. The real reason why I started writing this is because I am constantly fascinated by how "disconnected" we are becoming as a society. We stay in our own little bubbles on our own little devices in our own little worlds. Don't get me wrong, I love social media and cell phones. But there are pros and cons to everything and I definitely see a lot of cons to this social media world we find ourselves in. In a way we feel more connected to each other but in other ways we are far more disconnected. This is one of the reasons I love music! And going to a live show - people seem genuinely connected to the moment at concerts (most of the time).
As I was sitting here thinking about what could I get done tonight without talking at all... I began to think about some groceries I need to pick up - and I excitedly realized I could go to the nearest Walmart without talking to a soul (hello self check-outs)! Even the greeters don't really greet anymore. At least, generally when I look their way and flash a smile, I don't seem to get much back. And that's fine! Especially on a night like tonight. Let's go buy some ice cream and liquorice mint tea!
Meghan out. How all over the place was this blog?
xoxoxo