the post-season slump & gratitude
A couple life updates and anonymous stories.
Dear Reader,
Happy Christmas Eve! I hope you are able to enjoy some time with family and friends over the next few days, and that Christmas Eve services go smoothly :)
I honestly had a difficult time sitting down to write this week. Since last weekend’s concert excitement, I have spent most of my time at work at the grocery store (customer service for the week leading up to the holidays is a personal endurance challenge), watching tik toks, and sleeping. I’m trying to justify this to myself as a much-needed mental break, but struggling to ignore the deep hole in the middle of my motivation.
In high school, we called it post-show depression. After most semesters of my undergraduate studies, I spent a few days “rotting” in bed before feeling ready to face anything that resembled a daily routine again. I can usually expect to get sick or just straight up exhausted after a recital or busy concert season. This experience is nothing new, but it is pervasive nonetheless.
It hasn’t all been hard, though. I had a fun couple of days at work when I was able to help out in the cheese shop; one of my days consisted of 7 hours of cutting brie! I met with a new voice student for the first time, and really enjoyed meeting them, and I started to hear back from my graduate school applications. I’m also really looking forward to spending time with family over the next couple of days.
I might write a longer piece about the post-season slump at some point, but I wanted this week’s letter to be more positive in nature. I’ve heard it oft repeated that gratitude is a remedy for low morale, and so I wanted to share some moments of musical gratitude. Some of these are mine, but most are shared anonymously by friends. I hope you enjoy, and are able to reflect on your own experiences through a grateful lens.
Music saved my life. When I was younger, I ran with a "not so great" crowd. Did things I'm ashamed of today. Cue the end of 5th grade and the band director says I have a high aptitude for music. Wow! So I spent all summer at band camp. And never looked back. I made friends, learned good habits, and generally liked myself for the first time in my life. I got awards and scholarships. Went to college free my first two years. The friends? 2 are dead and at least 3 of the others have been in and out of jail. Music helped me escape that.
When I’m teaching a young student of the same voice part as me, I always try to assign them one of the first three songs I worked on with my first voice teacher. In a way, I am paying tribute to the lineage of teachers before me, and I am grateful to be able to pass on the same early memories of singing.
I listen to music…
for my sanity.
because it moves the whole self in more ways than anything else can.
because it’s a balm to my frazzled nerves.
to stim!
Starting a community opera company. Lots of work. Had a particularly stressful day of it when a cast member texted me that her mother's having health problems, and that the show is her outlet and how much it means to her to be involved. Another posted a nice post about how her involvement is her therapy as she grieves the loss of her mother. Such positivity! Makes it all worthwhile.
I recently did a concert where most of the audience shook my hand after and almost half of them were teary eyed. One of them was at the reception afterwards and like half an hour after the concert ended he was trying to thank me for the music and he got all choked up and teary eyed. Another audience member was a refugee from Afghanistan who couldn’t speak English and he used Google Translate to tell me I have a “golden throat”I felt like, as a performer, I forgot the kind of impact music can have - especially on people who don’t have access to it every day.
Music has been a lifesaver in countless moments throughout my life. Now, three decades later, I still maintain a close bond with my first band and choir teachers, a remarkable husband-and-wife team. They were instrumental in my early musical journey, often driving me to various schools to participate in their programs. This involvement was more than just musical education; it was an escape from my abusive home life, providing me with a sense of worth and the first glimpses of self-esteem through my musical talents.
In high school, being part of a nationally recognized choir opened up a world I never knew existed. It was an opportunity to travel across the nation, exploring cities and cultures far beyond my imagination. Then, in college, my voice teacher played a pivotal role in healing not just my voice, but my entire being. This mentorship fostered a flexible, growth-oriented mindset in me, and it was during this time that a music/performing trip to Greece transformed me profoundly. Returning from that journey, I was no longer the person I had been.
I make music…
because I live and breathe.
to stim!
because when words fail, music speaks. It expresses the whole self like nothing else can.
to connect with other humans.
I stopped singing due the pandemic. My one, last shot at trying to make a "go" of a singing career ended in March 2020. I have barely sung since, and I have even starting vaping to damage my voice so that I *can't* sing anymore. I thought that would make it easier to let go of. (It hasn't). I agreed to do one Christmas gig this year. The church I worked at immediately before the pandemic (I quit the job to go to university) invited me to help them with their Christmas cantata. They inserted a solo, and I sang with the sopranos for support. It was awkward because everyone asks me what I'm doing with my music these days. I am sick to death of hearing people with no f-ing clue about classical music tell me that "you're never too old..." or that "there are lots of places to sing right here!". I was only able to do this church gig because they only required me to attend one rehearsal (at which I sight-read the whole thing). Terrible story so far... I know. Except that when we performed/offered the piece to the public, there was a woman in the third row that looked familiar. I realised that she was a member of the church choir I joined with my grandmother when I was eleven years old. For context, I am now 46. That choir saved my life. I am not exaggerating when I say that I would not be alive today if they hadn't supported and nurtured me. They found something I was good at and endlessly encouraged me. Voice lessons. Summer music camps. They made these possible for a preteen/teen going through puberty with an undiagnosed neurological disorder and severe depression as a result. I am lost in a deep depression right now, but seeing her (and speaking with her afterwards) was a ray of hope. I survived middle school and high school. I can survive this, too.
Comparing the recordings from my first and last voice lessons of this semester, and hearing the progress I’d made on the song I’d been working on. Instead of listening back and criticizing myself, I was able to focus on the improvements that were made from the work I put in, which was refreshing.
Music also gifted me the skills to communicate effectively, to articulate my thoughts confidently in front of an audience. Now, as a music teacher, I have the privilege of influencing and enriching the lives of others. I work with many clients facing severe vocal or hearing challenges, guiding them to not only sing proficiently but also to express their true selves. Music, in essence, has been both my sanctuary and my voice, shaping my life and enabling me to shape the lives of others.
My singing teacher who aside from teaching is an early music specialist wasn’t involved in any Messiahs for the first time this year in about a decade and was quite down about it - so we went through in my last lesson of this year and sang all we could of it through together and he was almost in tears he was so grateful.
I am grateful for the travel opportunities that music has presented me!
I have so many... but this time of year reminds me of a very moving moment of gratitude. I always took my high school choir and visiting alumni caroling through the halls of the school on the last day before break. One year, a teacher came up to me in tears and gave me a big hug. She told me that her father had passed away recently and she was unable to have a good cry until she heard the students singing. I am always amazed and thankful for the power of music.
I feel a deeper sense of community in a room full of strangers breathing and singing together than I did at my family reunion in 2014. I could find ways to connect with people about music when we had nothing else in common, and so I learned to follow the music wherever it took me. Within this community, I began to feel empowered to share parts of myself that would usually stay hidden beneath shyness, and found ways to enjoy sharing expressive parts of my voice. When I am singing in choir, I can feel my life-long homesickness lift a degree, and feel the roots of my connections growing beneath me.
The heart of why I love music, I think, has to do with both of my parents having a caregiver who was deeply musical, and somewhat distant by circumstance. Both of my parents came into adulthood with powerful attachments to music and equally strong emotional reasons to not sing. So they sang with us. One of my fondest memories as a child was on a road trip. We were stopped at the gas station and bored in the early evening with miles to go. My mom asked if we wanted to sing, and I remembered a hymnal that had scooted under the front seat. I pulled it out and we sang through our favorites. Side note: We were a part of a religious community that got together once a week just to sing. I remember the easy joy of singing with my family in the car. Years later in college when the stress of perfectionism and measuring up hung over me like an anvil tied with dental floss, I often remembered that evening as a source of joy and gratitude for a family whose lineage, of which I was still unaware at the time, had passed down such a gift. Now that I know more about my parent’s secrets, I am even more grateful.
I think this is all I have to offer this week. If you’d like to share your own moment of gratitude, I have comments turned on for everyone for this post. I’d love to be able to hear about them <3
I am incredibly grateful to each of you for reading and supporting me. This project has become a highlight of my week, and I can’t wait to keep working on it. I’m planning a year-in-review letter for next week, and some exciting interviews and essays to open the new year. I hope to see you there!
Thank you for reading, and for supporting me and my work. If you are able, please consider a small financial contribution:
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Upcoming Performances:
January 6, 2024, 7pm; St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Brockport: Jazzy January with the St. Luke’s Schola Cantorum
January 26, 2024, 7:30pm; Ford Hall, Ithaca College: Concert in Honor of Dr Martin Luther King Jr. with Dorothy Cotton Jubilee Singers
January 28, 2024, 3pm; Broome County Forum Theatre, Binghamton: Mozart’s Requiem with Southern Tier Singers Collective and Binghamton Philharmonic Orchestra
Thank you for reading <3
Love,
Caitlin