Easy as pie. 
that nothing whytrust have Oh, no no no no no… Gloriaa capella
Photo Credits: William Ferguson (aka, my dad). 🙂
On Hating the Sound of My Own Voice
Holly Jahangiri
Holly Jahangiri is the author of Trockle, illustrated by Jordan Vinyard; A Puppy, Not a Guppy, illustrated by Ryan Shaw; and the newest release: A New Leaf for Lyle, illustrated by Carrie Salazar.
She draws inspiration from her family, from her own childhood adventures (some of which only happened in her overactive imagination), and from readers both young and young-at-heart. She lives in Houston, Texas, with her husband, J.J., whose love and encouragement make writing books twice the fun.
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This is a great story and I can identify with big parts of it. I was a music major, wanting to be a songwriter but having one teacher who hated the way I played piano and another teacher who loved my voice but wanted me to be an opera singer. And I had to do recitals for both, after which the piano teacher dropped me and I dropped individual voice and went with the choir instead because my German and Italian was abysmal, and I didn’t want to sing Drink To Me Only With Thine Eyes any longer. lol
Good thing we’re a LITTLE more thick-skinned these days, eh? Think what we might’ve missed out on, over the years, if we’d REALLY let it get to us!
Like, that interview this afternoon would NEVER have happened… 🙂
Wonderful story! It resonates in parts of my past as well. The early loss of the voice teacher who got me started ended that phase of things, but I still belonged to a family who play and sing as naturally as breathing. Now getting up and preforming for strangers – that is much harder to do.
I agree, great story there. From someone who’s always been terrified of singing and thus never really sang anything. Well, there are those silly in-the-house-in-front-of-the-family-only songs I’ll sing.
Singing is one thing I do well, under the right conditions. I told my kids long ago that if they could stand up in front of a church full of people and sing, alone, they would never need to be afraid of another thing.
It’s almost that strong a predictor.
I’ll never be great, but I’m competent, and I enjoy it, and I’m part of a tiny choir that sings for 4:30 Mass at the Princeton U. chapel on Sundays. So tiny that sometimes it’s just one or two of us and the organist – and we still do as many parts as there are people.
I didn’t start brave there, and I did have voice lessons as an adult, but I’m old enough now that I do the things that give me pleasure. They’re under instructions to tell me gently when my voice goes from soprano to little old lady, and I will then bow out.
Meanwhile, the acoustics in that chapel, the largest gothic chapel of its kind in the States, are amazing, and I can still sing in the motley crew of students, grad students, adjuncts, and retired staff that assembles there on Sundays.
And I am not afraid.
Oh, and I’m planning to do the ‘as read by author’ audiobooks for my books.
Good for you! Never let anyone steal your joy in that by making you feel self-conscious and awkward. (Certainly not to the point of tears, the way I was, at one time.) I’m back to singing in the car with the windows rolled up – but did discover that my ability to hit the notes improves dramatically right after a vigorous workout at the gym. I’m sure it’s the breathing techniques – day to day, we don’t all breathe as deeply as we should (I’m a shallow breather) and forget to “breathe from the diaphragm.”
So what sort of sound setup are you using for the “as read by author” audiobooks?
An interesting side effect of me having to take 3-5 half-hour naps a day just to function is that at least during several of those naps, I have problems settling down, so I have developed the ability to shut out the world by doing deep yoga counted breathing.
Think what even two or three of those sessions a day does for your diaphragmatic breathing!
I have a local audio studio I’m going to try out – good equipment is expensive, and I’m not sure about turning part of my house into a studio will require, and there is going to be a long gap between my books (very slow writer). The studio is $50 an hour, but includes a sound engineer. I have to check out the economics. Up until now, I’ve put in very little actual cash, and spent my time instead. But say it takes 20 hours to record – how much do I want to invest?
And all of this stuff comes out of my several hour ‘good time’ every day – it may be a while.
I have an app on my phone that measures sleep quality. A couple of nights, I’ve had only very light sleep (frighteningly light, given that I THOUGHT I was sleeping – 20% sleep quality). Last night? Almost 80%. I’d thought back to the last time I slept that well and what did they have in common? I took an NSAID before bed. The first time, due to neck/back pain. Last night, because I had 2nd degree burns in my throat from swallowing a bite of microwaved cookie – it caused a blister at about the middle point on the right side, and as of this morning I can tell the damage is from just behind the roof of my mouth to probably near my breastbone. I took anti-inflammatories to help with the pain, but mainly the SWELLING. I didn’t want to stop breathing in the middle of the night. And it had the added benefit of a GOOD night’s sleep, as well as keeping the blister pain to a dull roar. (On average, the app’s measuring me at around 60% sleep quality, so 80% is unusually excellent.)
Calculate the studio cost vs. a decent mic with pop filter and sound recording/editing software. It may be better to invest in what a podcaster uses than to worry about renting out a studio, but again, you have that learning curve to account for, and your own time in doing it. Me, I’d probably get the equipment if I were going to record more than 5 hours at those rates.
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(That’s an Amazon affiliate link and it’s Prime eligible – because why not? But several sources, most list it around $249. I’m not “endorsing” it because I’ve never used it, but if anyone buys it using this link, I may get a commission and be able to keep my Amazon affiliate status! Yay! LOL)