Arts Special…
I have always liked to listen to songs, and more than that I have liked to sing along. I always hoped that I would learn singing and be able to perform some day. I was in grade 6 when by chance I got selected for the inter house singing competition along with one of my friend and came 3rd. It was quite surprising…however there were just 4 participating entries and so the results did not seemed impossible. In grade 11, I suddenly decided to take up singing as my arts special and at least perform one song in front of an audience.
I was very excited to learn and understand the concepts of singing. My strengths were the interest and the curiosity I had for learning and practising singing (as singing amazingly, could not be considered as one of my strengths for obvious reasons). Moreover, gradually I realised that my voice was not as bad as I thought it was and that little bit of dedication and hard work would help me achieve what I wanted to. Additional, one of my important strengths were that I grasped things quickly. Therefore, I decided to attain as much knowledge and feedback as possible and learn wholesome amount of skills that I could in the available span of time.
I took up signing willingly and was confident I will be able to do my best. However, after attending few classes I started to loose my confidence. There were people who really sung brilliantly and I almost left like an outsider who knew nothing. Sir, who teched us signing did motivate all of us and never compared us with one another. Still, I was not able to again my confidence back. Later after some practice and the day when sir, said “Well done Jigyasha” was when I regained the faith in me. To add on, singing in front of the class and signing alone was quite embarrassing and difficult for me at first. Though, when I got used to it and noticed that all the people in my class never judged each other and instead motivated each other, was when I sang freely.
There were times when it was tedious to practise the same rhythm/song again and again and I found it useless to continue these classes. Also, there was academic pressure (all the deadlines, exams and everything was due soon) which drifted away my interest and dedication for singing. Luckily, I realised time management and polishing one skill at a time was an answer. I gave suitable amount of time for my academics and for signing and realised that it wasn’t such a great problems at all Additionally, I also accepted the fact that learning the same skilled again and again actually took me one step closer to being better at that skill and a better singer. These realizations kept be going and prevented me from not opting out form my singing classes.
After few classes it was announced that, in the AS Performance event we had to perform/ showcase all that we had learned during the AS classes (vocals). I was performing with two other girls from my grade. Both the girls were much better, in fact trained singer and I was just a beginner. This fact always kept me nervous and my confidence at level zero. I had difficulties matching with their pace, and it got difficult to sing collaboratively.though, as a result of practising together and distributing selected line to each person our song came out beautifully, and all the three of us shined in our own different way. Even after many difficulties, on the day of our performance though i was very nervous our performance was quite impressive. It is very true that working together has its own benefits. We could cover up if one of us forget a part of the song, each of us got to sing and show our talents equally and our voices together created a magnificent impact.
All in all, it was a wonderful experience and if possible in future I would like to learn more. I do believe that music is one of the greater stress relievers. I often find myself singing songs when I am sad and that really cheers me up. Listening to songs and singing songs always makes me happy and songs always convey things that help you understand and relate to your life is a better way.