It’s easy to forget how pleasurable singing is. I was reminded of this a few weeks back as I sat working on my desktop and felt a smile emerging on my face. Our younger daughter was up and about, preparing for her day before 6 a.m., and she was jamming away.
When she walked out of the bathroom, I called her over and told her how nice it was to hear her singing to start the day. It warmed my heart.
I would love to say I go around singing out loud regularly and whistling (another great positive force), but I don’t. Years ago, when I bicycled on my daily commute in Washington, D.C., I would sing at the top of my lungs on a daily basis, bellowing at the world, unleashing my personal twisted and bizarre lyrics based on my encounters of the morning. It was a blast.
My singing didn’t go away because I stopped biking (which I eventually did based on where we lived and the increasingly maniacal nature of drivers and traffic in major urban areas). I could have continued singing while mowing the grass, going for a run or cooking dinner. Somewhere along the way though, singing slowed to a crawl, and eventually almost fully disappeared. That’s sad.
Part of the reason our daughter’s voice jumps out at me is because I don’t find myself belting out tunes. I listen to her and remember.
Singing makes you happy. It’s a fundamental thing. Throughout history, songs produce joy and good emotions. Sure, they also address heartache and pain (can’t beat the blues), but even then there is a spiritual release of emotions that cleanses you and leaves you feeling refreshed and ready to take on the world from a new perspective.
Listening to a teenager sing also brings back memories. As our daughter readies herself for cross country practice before the sun rises, and a day of sitting in high school classes, her harmonizing takes me back to those days, listening to AM radio, driving with my buddies, going nuts when our favorite songs came on.
None of us could sing, but that didn’t matter. Spontaneity took over. That’s all that mattered.
Do we lose that with age? I would argue “yes,” at least partly. There is no logical reason for the desire to sing going away. It probably just slowly fades.
More importantly, can we recover our singing voice? Most definitely, the answer is “yes.”
This past year for Christmas, I asked our daughter to get me a CD with some music she liked and thought I would enjoy. She gifted me three “Linkin Park” CD’s. One would have been enough, because I can only absorb so much at any given time.
After several listenings, I texted a friend of mine who lives in Chicago, telling him he should buy the CD, which I described as a cross between the Violent Femmes, Gang of Four, Public Enemy, Eminem and Pearl Jam. It’s angry, loud, in-your-face, rappin’, drummin’, guitar kickin’, angst-ridden, pounding rock that rages and forces you to vocalize.
I’m not slamming my head against the steering wheel yet, and it takes me way longer to memorize words (never a strong suit to begin with). But I’m getting closer, and someday I’ll walk through the door screaming lyrics and the dogs will cover their ears, my wife will run for the bedroom, and the cats will scatter, but hopefully our daughter will say, “Dad, it makes me smile to hear you singing. But could you tone it down just a notch?”
When she walked out of the bathroom, I called her over and told her how nice it was to hear her singing to start the day. It warmed my heart.
I would love to say I go around singing out loud regularly and whistling (another great positive force), but I don’t. Years ago, when I bicycled on my daily commute in Washington, D.C., I would sing at the top of my lungs on a daily basis, bellowing at the world, unleashing my personal twisted and bizarre lyrics based on my encounters of the morning. It was a blast.
My singing didn’t go away because I stopped biking (which I eventually did based on where we lived and the increasingly maniacal nature of drivers and traffic in major urban areas). I could have continued singing while mowing the grass, going for a run or cooking dinner. Somewhere along the way though, singing slowed to a crawl, and eventually almost fully disappeared. That’s sad.
Part of the reason our daughter’s voice jumps out at me is because I don’t find myself belting out tunes. I listen to her and remember.
Singing makes you happy. It’s a fundamental thing. Throughout history, songs produce joy and good emotions. Sure, they also address heartache and pain (can’t beat the blues), but even then there is a spiritual release of emotions that cleanses you and leaves you feeling refreshed and ready to take on the world from a new perspective.
Listening to a teenager sing also brings back memories. As our daughter readies herself for cross country practice before the sun rises, and a day of sitting in high school classes, her harmonizing takes me back to those days, listening to AM radio, driving with my buddies, going nuts when our favorite songs came on.
None of us could sing, but that didn’t matter. Spontaneity took over. That’s all that mattered.
Do we lose that with age? I would argue “yes,” at least partly. There is no logical reason for the desire to sing going away. It probably just slowly fades.
More importantly, can we recover our singing voice? Most definitely, the answer is “yes.”
This past year for Christmas, I asked our daughter to get me a CD with some music she liked and thought I would enjoy. She gifted me three “Linkin Park” CD’s. One would have been enough, because I can only absorb so much at any given time.
After several listenings, I texted a friend of mine who lives in Chicago, telling him he should buy the CD, which I described as a cross between the Violent Femmes, Gang of Four, Public Enemy, Eminem and Pearl Jam. It’s angry, loud, in-your-face, rappin’, drummin’, guitar kickin’, angst-ridden, pounding rock that rages and forces you to vocalize.
I’m not slamming my head against the steering wheel yet, and it takes me way longer to memorize words (never a strong suit to begin with). But I’m getting closer, and someday I’ll walk through the door screaming lyrics and the dogs will cover their ears, my wife will run for the bedroom, and the cats will scatter, but hopefully our daughter will say, “Dad, it makes me smile to hear you singing. But could you tone it down just a notch?”