It started at the Simply Waiting show.
My town is riddled with a million poppunk bands with stereotypical vocals. I hate this vocal style more than anything in the world. Many reasons. None important. The point is that at the show I had to stand (well, I could've sat on the floor) through more than one band with these vocals.
And this made me think about the vocals of bands I listen to. The train of thought eventually led to my considering a top five list of people whose voices I wouldn't mind swapping mine for.
The list turned out as follows:
1: Esperanza Spalding (Noise for Pretend)
2: Thom Yorke (Yeah, I know, shut up.)
3: Erin McKeown (as herself)
4: Tori Amos
5: Fiona Apple
Of these, I think only the first two wouldn't make me incredibly depressed about the swap.
The formation of the list made me think about several things. The first was the realisation that so few men were on the list. And it isn't because I'd rather have a girl's voice to a boy's. I wouldn't. I just like so few voices, when it comes down to it. And with men it seems to be worse.
I always thought I liked male vocals better, just because I always listened to so many more male-fronted bands, but now I've realised that that's not the case. I just don't judge men the same way I judge women.
Females get held to the same set of standards I hold myself to. I expect originality, technical goodness, personality, emotion, resonance, power... a whole fuckload of things, essentially. I occasionally give people passes on some of these traits, but it's always grudgingly, and I'm always aware that the singers are not up to snuff when I do give these free passes out. The point is that every female whose voice I listen to has more of these traits than she doesn't have. And this is an incredibly rare thing.
The guys I listen to? No such luck. I'm lucky if they even have one of the listed traits. And I never realised it before, because it never occurred to me to hold males to the standards I hold me to. Fuck knows why. Me being a moron, perhaps. So. This was all news to me.
The second thing that stood out with regard to the list was that it made me actually think about my voice as if it wasn't mine. It made me figure out how I'd react to it if I'd heard someone else using it.
And I realised that I really, really like my voice.
It isn't perfect, but no one is. And it comes a lot closer than about 95% of the people I listen to.
This amazes me, because I haven't really had faith in my voice in years. I've sung, inevitably, but I didn't really think I was any good. I heard the flaws, without considering how many flaws the average singer tends to have.
And the fact is that most of the things I hate about my voice come from my having no faith in myself. When I just trust myself and sing, I love my voice more than practically any I've heard.
Which makes me feel narcissistic. But I don't really think that's it.
I've been in and out of various forms of voice training--from school choirs to proper lessons--since I was five years old. I've been singing every day of my life for longer than that. If I hadn't molded my voice into a shape I adored by now, there would have to be something seriously wrong.
Fuck, I even have my own sound now. It was the last thing I found, but I was so fucking happy when I did. It's a lot of why I don't sing along to albums much anymore. I sing when no music is playing. Snagging lyrics and notes, but fucking with everything else to the point where it sounds more me than them. And it makes me smile.
I just wish I had my own lyrics to sing. Songs that were completely mine. But every lyric I write gets thrown out within a week. And it's not the words. It's the subject matter.
I always end up feeling like a fraud. I don't have anything I'm passionate enough to sing about. I've never felt anything deeply enough to write about it.
But I think I might soon. I'm feeling and doing much more lately. The feeling came later. After being hit with a sledgehammer engraved with 'Your instincts are always right. Your emotions are always right. You must trust yourself to maintain your sanity.' Well. I feel like I understand now. I trust myself implicitly.
One hard knock and I became a human being.
Took. Fucking. Long. Enough.
But I'm still too concerned about other people to write about them. You may have noticed that my diaries rarely mention others, and when I do mention them it's usually ambivalent. This isn't self-obsession so much as a too-intense concern for their privacy. If I don't know how others would feel about being written about, I don't write about them. Or write in very veiled terms. Depending.
This is a problem, when it comes to writing lyrics. I need to stop caring so much, and just let out anything I want to say.
Maybe I'll start here, eh?
Admittedly, that isn't my only problem with lyricwriting. I also need to feel more. And I am, and I will. (Medication plan went out the window. I think if I allow myself to feel normal emotions, my mind might be more apt to work like an ordinary person's. Trying it out.)
So. I have a voice, but nothing to sing.
I'll have to work on this.
revoless.
11:49 p.m.
November 28, 2003.
Listening to: Noise for Pretend.