Simply Authentic...your soul voice is calling. Authenticity and Music

Authenticity and Music

Music has been a huge part of my life my whole life. I seem to have been singing since I could speak, took piano lessons from second grade through my senior year in high school. Played clarinet in concert band, the bells (they hurt) in marching band, electric piano in jazz band, and was in pretty much every singing group I could be in, including an “award-winning” girls’ trio called The Cadets.

 

 

This is a newspaper clipping Grandma Handke had saved from the Clark County Courier. You may not be able to read the caption: Winning the right to compete in the talent portion at the State Snow Queen Festival were three smiling and uniformed CHS girls. Performing “Bugle Boy of Company B” were Ruth Danekas (left), LeeAnn Fitterer and Laura Handke.

I worked so hard in swing choir to learn the dance moves, and to learn the vocal parts for The Cadets. This was before the digital age, so I would use an old-fashioned tape recorder to record each of the three part harmonies, so I could learn my alto part while singing with the two soprano parts when I was rehearsing at home.

Learning an instrument, whether it be wind, brass, string, keys, or our vocal instrument, which is our body, is not an easy thing to do. It takes commitment and practice, but most of all - passion.

I didn’t even start to understand what musicianship truly means (or that my authentic voice is actually dramatic coloratura soprano, not alto) until I became an apprentice voice teacher with the Transformational Voice Institute (www.transformvoice.com) in 2010, at the age of 46! I completed an 18 month apprenticeship program, while working a new full time day job, being at the voice studio three evenings a week after work, and completing regular homework assignments and assessments. I completely gave up on dating during this period, because I simply didn’t have the time.

 

But I simply knew that I “must” do this. Music is such a huge part of who I am in the deepest, most authentic part of myself.  

Here is a photo of my new “baby.” Finally, a full-sized keyboard that looks like a piano! I was so tired of running out of keys at the top of my mini-keyboard and needing to drop down an octave when I was playing, say, Mozart’s Sonata in C, that one evening I simply said – this is it. Going keyboard shopping tomorrow.

Fortunately, I had saved the money. But it was still a big decision. This is the most money I have spent since I bought my previously loved car for $7100 in 2010. We went to Classic Pianos in Portland and heard and played keyboards ranging in price from $1200 up to $16,000. I went with one for $1800 (usual price $2200) and have been thrilled with it. I made an investment in my authentic self, a wise and relatively frugal one.

Gina Williams said in a previous post, “I concluded that art will always be a hugely important part of my life – as critical to my survival as oxygen. Without it, I am broken.”  I said in a previous post to my 13-year-old self, “If you have a burning desire in your heart to create or do something, create or do it. Don’t worry about anything beyond that, just do the creating part and the rest will take care of itself.”

That is the way I feel about music, and about creating whatever is in our authentic hearts.

I wish you very happy creating.

Joy to the World this Christmas and holiday season! May the energy of Jesus Christ be within your heart today and throughout the coming year. I hope this doesn’t sound disrespectful…Jesus is a rock star. I think He would like my saying that. J

 

Authentically Yours, Laura