I'm Singing On The Beach ...
* The previous story to this can be found
here.
So, and following on with my promise that I would continue to work on my
public singing phobia, I put on the hat, the sunglasses and headed for
Eastbourne Beach. Absolutely a personal development
exercise, the idea was to perform a set consisting of three songs out in
the open, out aloud, and not be terrified. I enlisted the
help of Steve Collins to get me there, and after some discussion, I
chose a beach that had some passing folk but was otherwise quite empty.
Steve had a camera and took the pictures you can see here, to prove that
I was really there, and I really DID this thing today on the day of the
Lord May 5th, 2006. I had decided on the first and third
song - Forward Or To Hell, and Give Me Purple. The middle one was still
a nebulous. We got there, parked the car, walked to the
beach and I must admit that I was still very scared.
It is a strange thing to be doing to stand up on a beach
somewhere in broad daylight and start to sing, very loudly at that. But
it had to be done, and we'd gotten this far, and so now it was quite
literally
"Forward Or To Hell, My Friend ..."! So I
picked up the guitar, put the strap around my shoulders, tried to take a
deep breath and just got started. My voice isn't quite
there yet after the training weekend at Gatwick; but I had enough volume
and flexibility left to give a reasonably decent rendition of Forward.
Some things I noticed. The song seemed to go on literally FOREVER. This
is a phenomenon of time distortion which occurs under stress and was
originally designed to make the attacking wolf go into slow motion and
give you more time to get away. You need to have quite a severe level of
stress to trip that into action, so to say that I just did this thing
easily would not be a correct assessment at this point.
Still, I got through the song (real time: 3.42 mins, experienced time: 4
1/2 HOURS!) and started to acclimatise a little to the situation. I
didn't notice Steve taking the photographs. I was way too into the whole
situation and the singing thing to worry that as well. Instead, I
worried about what the 2nd song should be.
 As
I worried and tried to remember to breathe, I walked closer to the
water's edge, and became aware of the waves, the rhythmic nature of the
waves, and one of my older songs floated into my mind which has a very
similar rhythm -
Speak The Words. Here now, I stopped
worrying. I listened to the rhythm of the waves and started to play the
introduction, trying to catch the waves as they rush in and recede and
match the song to that completely. There was just me, the song, the
waves and that was all. There were moments of magic there and I thought
somewhere along the lines in there that I would have to put ocean waves
behind that should this ever be recorded because it worked so well.
I also thought that I was playing for the sea, with the sea and that it
was a shame that I didn't have a better song, a better tribute to the
day, the sun, the waves and the soft wind to play. I
shall have to do something about that ... When I came
back from that experience, things were different. I
looked around myself and smiled.
What fool plays to a totally empty beach?
But that's alright.
Healings of all sorts can be had from other places than
sitting in a therapist's office, and it was ok. I was there because I
needed to be, wanted to be, and all was well.
The third song wasn't really appropriate to this day, to this
environment, but I had set a task to play three songs and I wanted to
follow that task as precisely as possible. There is a
temptation when you do such things, when it goes well, to try and push
it on further - well you can do three songs, how about ten?
How about going somewhere else now where there's crowds
of people "while we're at it"? But I do know from many
and many more experiences that when you're dealing with a fragile new
system, you need to take it easy and most of all, you need to build up
TRUST. I need to be able to trust myself that I won't put
myself into situations that I'm not ready for, or that I will push me
beyond my limits. It is of the essence that I should *succeed
absolutely* at this point; and that has to be set up and defended, so I
can start to become confident in the end, and that it should be a solid
confidence at that. So I bowed to the programme and
played the third song,
"Give Me Purple". Now as I said,
that wasn't at all appropriate. A very cool song to sing
with candle light in a pub at night, or round a camp fire; here in this
bright, sunny winds'n'waves environment it was just weird and completely
out of place. But I played it anyway, sang it as best as
I could and that wasn't so bad, after all. When I'd
finished, I became aware of Steve with his camera, took off my hat and
smiled at him.
 And
that concluded my first ever real "public" performance!
The stones applauded mightily, and the sea rushed approval ...
Phew! Steve and I sat on the beach for a while afterwards
and I was very happy, calm, tranquil. I was pleased with
myself and most of all that I had made the effort to get my butt out
there and do this thing. It was a truly beautiful day, a
perfect day, and I'm very serene, very happy right now. I
look forward to doing something else next, and I guess that would be an
open mike night at a local folk club. The 6 Bells in Chiddingly does
such a thing, and I've been there on many occasions, feeling so sad and
bitter that I couldn't just get up and sing. When it
comes to it, I'm sure it won't be a question of "just" either; but I
know I'll do it, and that will be another step stone. I
have wanted to sing all my life, and now I'm actually doing it!
It's an amazing feeling, a wonderful sense of accomplishment way beyond
what others might think or say, because it comes from the inside, and
this being so, no-one can take it away. Thank you for
listening, and may you find a way to fill your heart's desires whilst
there still is time. Silvia Silvia
Hartmann
http://SilviaHartmann.com
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