On December 22, 2023, I'll be joining the incredible singer Yael Zaza Flamenca with the accomplished musicians from Burn Unit for one song on stage. This is something that is well outside of my comfort zone and causes me major anxiety issues, and I can't wait.
When I was young, I was told that I couldn't sing because I was tone-deaf. I couldn't find the tenor notes that the other boys found so easily like plucking them straight out of the air. Later in life, I would discover that I'm not a tenor at all, and if I tried to find the lower notes, I could play with those very happily. By that time, I had already been scolded by music teachers, embarrassed by choral directors, and even laughed off the stage at an audition. The thought of performing musically gave me tremendous anxiety, and the interest in persuing it had left me. I went to my comfortable place where I could enjoy the music without being challenged.
Still, the presence of music in my life has been a powerful influence. Anyone can identify with that, whether it's an impulse of joy that causes someone to abandon sensibility for a moment and start dancing in the middle of a store, or a particular series of notes that hits the senses and causes an irrational emotion to well up and trickle out of someone's eyes spontaneously. Music can pause the breath, speed up the heart, trigger the mind, penetrate the soul, inspire fury, stir sadness, motivate a march, or just provide a pulsing mathematical rhythm to cause people to believe they can dance.
I have found ways to incorporate music into what I do in a variety of ways. The anxiety never left, but I have been in a few musicals. One of my first jobs was working with production design for Opera companies. I would continue working in-house on design and performance at dinner theatres with seasons comprised mostly of musical theatre and music reveues. I did film work where the action had to move with the musical underscore. I incorporated music and musical performance into scripts and stories I wrote. I incorporated singing techniques into my vocal projection in plays and character performances. Ultimately, the joy of music as part of my existance overwhelmed the anxiety from my past experiences.
Through this journey I have discovered there is a list of things I do well, and there is a list of things I enjoy doing. These are two different lists. The areas where the two lists meet is my comfort zone. It's a small little familiar space where everything is safe, and I can explore parts of the world within a certain reach without much risk, and without too much care. It's like a little pen designed to keep livestock from going wild. It's a place where hunger doesn't exist. It sounds like a tempting place, but comfort is the enemy of creation. Hunger drives exploration. I need to be reminded of that now and then and allow my anxieties to be challenged. Maybe it's not normal to have such grievances with the idea of comfort, but I'm a creative, so the hope of being normal died a long time ago.
I'm looking forward to breaking out of my pen and finding out what it feels like to be wild and hungry. I'm so grateful to these incredible musicians for wanting to share this with me, and to the audience members who don't chase me off the stage. And if you are one of those audience members who's looking forward to chasing me off the stage, there will be plenty more opportunities for you to do that, I'm sure. But save it. This concert is great, and you'll want to see it through.
