Voice Lessons

My first lesson was last Tuesday. My teacher, a Mezzo Soprano completing her Ph.D. in Musical Arts, secured a small private room on campus with a black piano and a distorted mirror.

"I want to watch you breath", she said, directing me to stand in front of the piano. "See if you can sing these back. Sing them 'la, la, la'."

She played three chords. My memory is swiss cheese, has always been swiss cheese. The notes slipping in one ear and floating out the other.

"Can you play them again?"

I acknowledge that I need to practicing listening. It's an art form I've let slide. There was a time it was a thing I was known for. I listened, and so people talked with me all the time. I was always sitting somewhere with someone nodding my head, making encouraging, non-committal remarks to their confessions. For this I was told more than once that I was "real" or "really real". I liked that.

She played the cords again and I told myself to listen. "La, la, laaa?" I offered.

"Thank god." She said. "You're not tone-deaf."