i am in constant doubt about my voice. some days, i think it is beautiful. other days, i wonder if i'm fooling myself and it's actually just mediocre -- or worse than mediocre. all i really know for sure is that i love singing. but, and maybe this is ridiculous vanity, i would also like it if other people love it when i sing. not because of me at all, just because they liked my voice. because it makes me really happy, thinking that i could add a little beauty into the world. and at this point, i think singing is the only marginally creative thing at which i have a shot at all. and that's only because enough people have said to me that they think my voice is beautiful. and because i know how much i love singing, and i have to, i must, believe that the love i have for singing, the enjoyment i get out of it, the amazing way it feels, counts for *something*. but there have been many times when i wonder, maybe they were being polite. after all, plenty of people have heard me sing and have *not* told me they liked it. maybe they're just more honest. some part of me thinks, i don't care. i'll sing anyway, because i love it. but i don't want to bother people. and i don't want to be arrogant, and think i am good when i am not. i really don't. but my problem is, i think i sing best when i'm really confident. but often, i'm just not. i'm totally insecure about this. there are things i'm not too insecure about. but this. this i'm insecure about. because i will never know. i will never be able to tell, to evaluate how good my voice is. because people sound different inside their own heads. simple fact. and recordings don't do the human voice justice. and it's my *voice*, i'd have no idea how to evaluate it. and besides, music and what music one likes is so subjective, so a true measure of what is good simply don't exist. argh. i just hope i'm not *bad*...
this comes up because i'm considering actually performing filk songs at next year's Boskone. i'm nuts. what if i am foolish, up there on stage? and one of the things i'd consider performing is something the writer of the song wants performed in front of Neil. i mean, talk about embarassing. and it needs someone who can sing jazz, with a good range. now, range i'm not worried about. but... someone who can sing jazz. i just don't *know* how good i am at singing jazz. i'd like to believe that i could be very good at it, but it's not like i've tried singing jazz-like things in front of anyone. most of what i've sung in front of people has been classical and folk. i mean, i have a rich voice. and i'm good at playing with it. but i just don't know.
well, now that i've spent the entirety of this entry being completely, self-indulgently, alternately, whiny and insecure and arrogant, i have to run off to dinner. sorry 'bout that.