Singing

I used to sing and perform music for friends and relatives from the time I was about 8 years old and started taking piano lessons. I took piano lessons until I was 16 years old and played in recitals until I was 12 and told my parents and piano teacher I wouldn't play in recitals anymore. However, I did play the Steinway Concert Grand at Church and the baldwin Organ there too especially for youth Group Saturday night and sometimes Wednesday night and for musicals sometimes too and at the church School I went to my last year of High school in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I suppose I could have been a professional musician but I didn't like the idea of playing in smoke filled rooms with drunk people listening. And I didn't see myself making a living playing music and singing in churches the rest of my life either so music stayed mostly a hobby after I stopped playing in church at about 21 when I parted ways with my childhood church.

But, singing and playing the piano always was a part of my life and writing songs and lyrics began during my teens too. I mostly wrote more spiritual songs and deep philosophical songs as that was the direction that made the most sense to me. I had almost died of whooping cough at 2 and of blunt trauma caused childhood epilepsy that I outgrew at 15 so I tended to be more serious than the average young person because of this. But, my suffering also made me very kind too because my suffering made me not want anyone else to experience the pain and suffering of whooping cough and blunt trauma childhood epilepsy so it could be said I knew death quite intimately from age 2 onwards.

So, I was always trying to convince myself that I was still alive by taking physical risks which allowed me to sort of believe I was still alive after dying at age 2 and between ages 10 and 15 with blunt trauma childhood epilepsy where the seizures were just like being murdered each time they happened and took several hours to recover from them. I suppose by 35 or 40 these types of seizures likely would result in death from stroke or heart attack.

So, Singing with friends or with my mother while playing piano or later organ or guitar was something I found very soothing and healing in my life. When I met girlfriends I would often sing for them on piano or guitar throughout my later teens from age 15 to 25 years old when I met my first wife and had a son.

My mother was a coloratura Soprano so she would also sing with me and people in the same family like brothers or sisters or mothers and sons or fathers and daughters often sound really good together by the way.

So, my mother and I were very musical in this way. However, when my father passed away in 1985 I stopped playing and singing very much except maybe at Christmas because I couldn't deal with my emotions that came up when I played music. When my father died a part of me died too and I didn't get over this from age 37 when he died until I almost died at age 50 for 8 months time. Because of what happened to me as a child I have always felt I was both dead and alive at the same time which is the description of what a shaman is according to my College Course I took in Cultural Anthropology which said something like: "A Shaman is a person who has psychologically died but somehow their body still lives" which is my experience from having whooping cough at 2 and then having Blunt trauma childhood epilepsy from ages 10 to 15.

Because though you live you sort of feel dead too. For this reason death doesn't scare me at all because you already live in the world of the dead and the living all the time. So, to me, there is not much difference between being dead and alive. They are both two aspects of exactly the same thing in the end.

But, I'm trying to get to a point where I can more easily sing and play musical instruments more often too because I think it would be therapeutic for me because I'm 71 now and will be 72 soon.

By God's Grace

Singing

My mother was a Coloratura Soprano. She always had a really amazing voice that often brought tears to my grandmother and my eyes when I was as young as age 2 or 3 years old in Seattle in Lake Forest Park then. I was 2 in 1950 and lived there until 1952 when we moved to San Diego, California.  Most of the time since then I have lived in San Diego, Los Angeles County, Mt. Shasta, or the Greater San Francisco Bay area or Hawaii. Oh, I went to my last year of high school in a private school in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

 

Anyway, my mother had an amazing voice which she really let loose at home, in church or walking deep into the forest with my father and I. So, at times it was like growing up in a musical with my mother singing a lot. But, it calmed us all down as she sang things like 

2. Be My Love - Mario Lanza - YouTube
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3. which she would sing along with Mario Lanza on the record player then.
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Coloratura soprano - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coloratura_soprano A coloratura soprano is a type of operatic soprano voice that specializes in music that is distinguished by agile runs, leaps and trills. The term coloratura refers to ...

So, hearing my mother singing so much had an influence on me and so I started to sing too which eventually resulted in me taking piano lessons from age 8 to 16 years of age and taking violin lessons from age 9 in public school to age 14 in junior high school. But I never was very good at the violin because there were no frets on a violin and a violin is not forgiving. However, I got really good on the piano and later on the organ and keyboards and synthesizers as I grew up. And I sang in the choir in church from age 12 to age 21 when I left the church. I suppose I was good enough to go professional but I found I didn't like playing in front of drunks smoking cigarettes or on drugs. So, I played and sang mostly for my parents, friends and especially girlfriends who really loved it when I did this.

Also, I noticed that being with girls was a lot like playing and singing music. So, if you found a way to express your emotions through singing and playing music you could also express your emotions verbally with girls. And I found I was a good listener to the problems of girls and women I knew of all ages so they tended to like me because I was understanding, non-judgemental and compassionate and helpful to all of them when I could be.

But then, at age 37 my father died and nothing in my life ever prepared me for a devastation this deep. Not even the deaths of my 4 grandparents one by one starting with my mother's father at my age 12 prepared me for losing my father. So, I found I couldn't play or sing music for a while without feeling sort of screwed up and not being able to deal with my emotions regarding the death of my father when I was 37. It also triggered middle Aged Crazy in me until I was 50 and almost died of a heart virus myself. Somehow, almost dying myself I got over myself and accepted my mortality and that each day was only grace past age 40 anyway. Because most people before 1900 died before they were 40 to 60 then anyway. So, anything past 40 is GRACE.

So, this made me think "Every day I'm alive now is a blessing and I could die any moment."

This freed me from the worry about dying because I accepted my death in any moment but simultaneously I accept I may never die too. 

I know this is a paradox but it is the one I live in now and it's okay. It's peaceful this way.

Recently my wife has lost 3 or 4 people close to her including her stepfather and her uncle. This has been very hard for her and especially hard for me because I'm 68 now and not as resilient as I used to be in being her "ROCK". So, one day this last week I got into the shower because I wasn't doing very well and I just started to sing some of the songs I used to sing in the 1970s from John Denver and others. And I found I was happy once again. Simultaneously in the other room I found out that my wife had gotten reservations for Lake Tahoe which was really amazing too.

So, whatever the barriers to my singing or playing music they appear to be gone now in some kind of miracle from God Grace or something.

So, I guess I'm getting back into music (playing and singing music once again).

I find great peace in this that I've finally come to terms with my father passing in 1985 and my mother passing away in 2008. So, I'm living in a new state of Grace which is good.

So now I'm staying in Lake Tahoe having gone up the gondola up to 8200 feet at Squaw Valley today and seen just how beautiful it is this year with this much amazing snow!

By God's Grace




 

Singing

The blue tick hound next door is barking(baying) while I sing softly here in the hot tub outside. I just discovered something I once discovered as a child. Playing my own music on keyboards, organ,  piano or guitar or flute and also singing is one of the few things in life that can bring me out of a funk when I have to bury someone who has died. Even that word "Bury" isn't really true much in California anymore. People I know don't usually get buried, they get cremated first and then transported to where they want their ashes deposited which usually is at sea or on top or near the top of a mountain they love somewhere.

But, singing softly songs I used to sing and play on piano and guitar just brought me out of a funk I have been in since I had to go to a memorial in Southern California last week. The problem was that 14 years ago in Spring 1999 I had to go to the same place for my wife's mother's funeral (memorial) and after that I almost lost my wife to her mother's death. She had a real hard time staying alive for a couple of years for our then 2 1/2 year old daughter and me. But, all things eventually pass and life moved on now 14 years later and here we were going to exactly the same place for my wife's stepfather's girlfriend this time. He's now 95 and his girlfriend was about 77 I think. And my wife's mother was about that same age in 1999 when she passed away too.

Anyway, if you are like me and naturally musical like my mother was and I still am maybe try singing or playing music if it will help you in difficult times like these.