When I started to lose my singing voice a few years ago, I thought that I would also lose my livelihood. The voice is such a delicate instrument- its amazing just what there is out there to throw it off. In my case, it was several things- acid reflux, for one, which stiffened my pipes. I sang around it, not really even knowing that I was doing it. Eventually, my voice changed for the worse. More recently, I have developed sinusitis, and that has closed off my resonant mechanism a bit too.
Needless to say, its not nearly as easy to sing for me now as it was three years ago, and the voice I sing with now is a drastically changed one. If I hear my voice in my recent recordings, it makes me cringe!
But what I am finding with audiences is that they don't care. And I've been told that the reason they don't care is that I manage to tell the story, and to make the point, and that a "beautiful" voice is not as important as a "communicative" one.
This afternoon I played "And the Band Played Waltzing Mathilda" for a decent sized crowd. I was really struggling with my voice at first, but the story of that song is so clear and powerful that, well before the end of the song, I'd managed to close my eyes and see it happen- and amazingly, nobody was bothered by the stiffness of my voice.
Now I'm not going to say that I'm happy with the change- I miss having song be as easy as breathing, and hope that I'll find my way into a new voice which will allow that to happen- and I've never been a "good" singer, if "good" singing is measured by people like Pavarotti!
Ach- I'm waffling around. Better stop blabbering,