114. The Curious Incident at the Singing Girls Group

I played piano when I was younger. I wasn’t all that bad. Classically trained since the age of six, then learned about rock and jazz and things that made girls think I was cool.

I wanted to be a rockstar cause, you know, who doesn’t. Unfortunately I couldn’t sing. And I really wasn’t that talented. But I mostly blamed it on the singing.

I used to be angry at my parents that I wasn’t born British. As far as I could tell, every Brit could sing. Bowie, Jagger, Elton John, the Kinks, Cat Stevens, every single person in Fleetwood Mac, Lennon, McCartney... even Ringo could sing. Kind of.

It seemed to me that if you were British, you could carry a tune.

Not me. I was American. I was tone deaf. Still am.

I can’t hit a note for the life of me. My head and heart believe I’m going to sing like Springsteen, but the sound that results is best described as Mickey Mouse during puberty.

The Curious Incident At The Singing Girls Group

I once had a summer job as a piano accompanist for a vocal class. It was 8 to 12 year old girls learning to sing. I would show up once per week and play scales or songs from “Annie” or whatever other malarkey the teacher instructed me to play.

I was a prop, happy to sit silently and perform whatever and whenever the instructor wanted.

On the last class of the summer, the teacher asked if I wanted to sing.

“You’ve been a great accompanist this entire summer,” she said to me. “Let’s give you a chance to sing.”

“No thanks, I’m good.” I replied before she even had a chance to finish.

That’s when the students started trying to convince me.

“You have to,” they said.

“C’mon Jeff,” they pleaded.

“You need to sing,” they demanded.

And they continued on with that prodding for just long enough that the voice inside of me decided to say, “how bad could this really be. You’re going to sound like Springsteen.”

So I agreed.

The teacher prepped me with the verse of a song. I don’t remember the song. It doesn’t matter.

I closed my eyes, whispered a silent prayer and, with the first bead of sweat dripping down the small of my back, I took a big breath, opened my mouth and began to sing.

I suppose using the word “sing” brings its own connotations. More accurately, I screeched and stumbled. If my voice were a person, it would be severely drunk, weaving its way down a dark hallway, bashing into one wall after another as it pleaded to be saved.

The students looked at me in horror.

The teacher sunk back in discomfort and dread.

The tension in the room caused the air to thicken. I began to cough. To gaasp for breath. I tried to stand tall as my body crumbled to pieces inside. I think all my bones disintegrated into my feet.

I stopped singing after two lines.

There was an uncomfortable silence for a few beats. And then the teacher dismissed the class.

No acknowledgment of me. No acknowledgment of my singing. The moment was being erased from history. Erased from memories. As if the horror of the moment left a scar on all that witnessed it.

I left the studio and never went back. I never tried to sing in public again.

Tone Deaf

Being tone deaf can be painful for others. Everybody has feelings. To trample on another’s feelings, is such a deep level of tone deaf, it’s practically tone mute as well.

I recently talked about the Basecamp CEO and how he shut down conversations about diversity only to have a mass exodus of employees.

I’m not talking about being woke - which, by the by, is a term I despise. I’m talking about being aware and having empathy.

Whether it’s about race or religion, sexual preference or skin color, physical prowess or singing abilities, the empathy of diversity is the bond that builds trust and security.

One of the most important elements to counteract emotional tone deafness, is self-awareness. Understanding who you are is the first step of understanding others.

This normally would be the segment where I break into a rant about how you could better understand yourself. But I’m not going to - because that’s on you, not me.

Besides, it’s time for me to go and secretly practice my scales.

I know there’s a Springsteen somewhere inside of me. I just have to find it.