I want to start off this post with a huge thank you to everyone that read this blog, sent me a text to see how I was doing, sent their thoughts/prayers my way, and kept me positive during this very difficult summer. Friends and family, thank you. I hope that you all learned something about vocal chords and that you appreciate your ability to use your voice more now.
Since my last post, a bunch of really interesting things have happened. First, Youth Radio did a podcast about my story that features me and my mom. If you haven't yet heard it, check it out.
I also wrote a new song about this summer. It's called Tears and Time. I've already posted a version to my sound cloud, but listen to this one anyways. It has piano, background vocals, and some lead guitar over it. I did all of the production and recording on an iPad, so I'm sorry if the levels are weird.
This week, I had my three-month post-op check up, and my doctors told me what I already knew--my voice is doing really well. The surgeon did not expect my recovery to be as successful as it was, and he even called my voice soulful! My singing range is now a full 2 octaves, and my speaking voice doesn't crack like a pre-pubescent boy. I'm super proud.
Here are a few things that I have learned both about myself
and the world in the three-year process of losing and regaining my voice (in no
particular order). Read them if you want. I won't be offended if you don't.
- · People take the ability to communicate with sound and language for granted, especially in terms of singing.
- · Singing = joy. Even people with terrible singing voices can let loose and go to a club and sing their heart out with friends. When I went out to a club before I was cleared to sing, people asked me why I was in such a crappy mood. Granted, that was in the Castro the night that DOMA was repealed...and it was guilty pleasures night.
- · The world is super loud. Having conversations in cars, restaurants (especially bars), and anywhere with traffic requires us to raise our voices far more than we realize. People joke about noise pollution, but in reality, our world is far louder than our voices want it to be.
- · Younger people tend to cut each other off much more than older people, and conversations with older people tend to progress more slowly with older people than younger ones. I spent a lot of time this summer with my parents and their friends (the non-bar crowd), and noticed that they on average take more time between comments to let ideas sink in. We young folk constantly cut people off and are thinking about what we want to say while other people are talking. We talk over each other instead of with each other. In doing so, we miss the great points that our quieter friends make.
- · There is a massive difference between hearing and listening. Listening does not merely mean sitting silently—listening requires paying actual attention. While we may delude ourselves and say we can listen while texting, really, we cannot; we can only hear while our fingers are twiddling away playing Candy Crush on our phones.
- · I’ve never liked having “real” conversations over text messaging; after the NSA programs were revealed this summer, I like them even less. By communicating online/over texting, we put everything in writing; because of screenshot technology, everything we convey electronically could be public information. Yes, it’s easy to send a text message, but nothing can beat an in person conversation or a phone call/skype date.
- · A sarcastic inside joke often carries the same words as a violent threat, and is (almost) always unnecessary. I’m a super sarcastic person, but when limited to just 5 or 10 minutes an hour of vocal use, it’s not worth wasting precious words on mean ones.
- · We (but especially young people) take our bodies for granted, and someone ALWAYS has it worse than us. A friend of mine had his 4th wrist surgery this summer and is hoping to have mobility in his writing hand; my worst-case scenario was a hoarse voice. Boo hoo.
- · Everyone’s voice is super different, and everyone uses their voice really differently. Think about a metal singer that screams at the top of his lungs with a huge amount of rasp, then a musical theater singer with crazy vibrato, then your favorite artist, and then your average friend that sings in the shower. Just as some body types are better for some sports, some vocal tracts are better inclined to sing different types of music. Some people can do things with their voices that would damage mine. There is no correct way to sing or speak, only a way that is most efficient for your specific anatomy.
- · If something is wrong with your voice, I can’t diagnose you. The UCSF Voice and Swallowing Center can.
- · I’m lucky that I recovered. Julie Andrews had vocal surgery too, but she cannot sing. My doctors have consistently told me that my recovery has progressed further than they ever imagined, and just listening to what my voice can do this summer vs. last summer exemplifies this change. Having said that, I’d be OK being Julie Andrews.
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