We begin with a susurration from the basses, which melds into a low buzz on a G sharp, then back to the voiceless fricative, as the sopranos add a high, soft whistle through the teeth. A murmuring ripple from the tenors, and a solitary alto note — no words, just a long broad vowel sound, an ornamental semiquaver flourish, and back up to the starting pitch, which breaks now into a short staccato sequence before dying away.

This is as good as it gets

I’m in my element. My feet are rooted to the stage, I feel joyful and strong, and the notes I sing — that luxurious opening A sharp, the supple semiquavers, the playful staccato — feel connected, aligned, plugged in, as if I’m simply opening my mouth and letting them flow.

Over the next few bars the sound will diversify, with bird calls, gentle ululations, and tongue clicks proliferating through the choir, before the basses and tenors gradually set up a more traditional chord sequence, and the sopranos and altos swing in above them, at last, with the text. It’s one of the most delicate transitions from silence to choral harmony I’ve ever heard.

The piece is Under-Song, Derry composer Seán Doherty’s setting of the poem of the same name by Irish modernist poet Lola Ridge, and it’s been a favourite in my choir’s repertoire since we first sang it in 2014. (Here’s a version from 2019 featuring unseemly quantities of my face.) Text and score together create a brilliant, intelligent evocation of a forest soundscape, complete with breezes and raindrops and birdsong — and also of an elusive, mysterious other music: the ”under-song” of the title.

It’s a stunning piece, a real privilege to sing.

After this particular performance, our conductor remarks to me, “I always know I can rely on you for that entry. You’re rock solid — you don’t seem to get nervous at all!”

I respond with vague thanks and assent, and change the subject, quick.

What I don’t say

…because I’m scared (always) of coming across as Too Much…

…although I’m no longer even too sure what the risk is, there, because lots of people are Too Much, and they’re still allowed to exist, right?

Anyway. What I don’t say is, No, you’re right, I don’t get nervous. How could I? The music is already living in my body: all I have to do is let it out.

I don’t say that, because, well, I don’t want to come across as a pretentious wanker. But truly, performance — and solo performance all the more so — brings me alive like a lightning bolt to a mad scientist’s lab specimen (I thought you were a bit funny-looking all right, says you).

People talk about stage-fright, the fear of public speaking, the urge to avoid being the focus of attention. But when I’m on stage, I get none of that. Instead, the feeling that overwhelms me is one of vast safety and love. I want to tap into that and let it flow through me and back out to the audience through my performance.

Last year I heard the sublime and amazing Sinéad O’Connor say in an interview with Blindboy Boatclub that when she sings she wants it to be like bringing people to church. When I heard that I burst into tears, because I related to it so hard.

My choir did a stadium gig a few years ago, in front of something like 60,000 people (with millions more tuning in on TV). I remember looking around as we prepared to sing and thinking, “Yeah, this feels like about the right size for an audience!” I envied the professional soloists that evening, because they got to soak in the crowd by themselves.

I am, of course (and this will come as zero shock if you’ve been reading any of my recent posts), deeply ashamed of this trait of mine.

It’s all wrong, you see

Not getting nervous before a performance is obviously a character flaw.

I should get nervous. Everyone gets nervous. It’s part of what makes us human. Solidarity over performance anxiety is how we connect. The fact that I don’t really get it makes me alien, unrelatable, and (if I ever slip up and let anyone find out) irredeemably annoying.

What’s the matter with me? Is it that I like the attention? Is that it? Because that, too, seems irredeemable.

It must be that I love the sound of my own voice, because I’m a show-off. Furthermore, it seems probable that I am up myself, and perhaps also that I think I’m so great.

I am — quite seriously — imagining you muttering all these things about me right now, as you read this. (Sorry. I realise that’s annoying in itself.)

But come here to me, do you want to know the awful truth?

Of course you do.

Ready?

OK.

Here it is: I do love the sound of my own voice.

I don’t even hate hearing myself on tape.

You see? Like I said, unrelatable.

This feels super vulnerable to admit, and I have an immediate compulsion to qualify it. So I want you to know that I don’t necessarily think my voice is especially “good”, in absolute terms. It’s a fairly ordinary middle-aged amateur (ok, semi-professional, technically) singer’s voice.

It’s just, I enjoy using it, I like the way it sounds, and I like when people seem pleased to hear it. That’s all.

Nobody ever seems to say that out loud, though, so it feels as though I’m breaking some sort of omertà.

This, more than anything I’ve written so far in 2022, feels horribly scary to publish. I can hear, in my mind’s ear, a deafening chorus (ironically enough) of nasty voices going, “Oh my GOD would she ever just shut the fuck up and fuck the fuck off? Imagine thinking this drivel was interesting! And have you ever heard her sing? Jesus wept. She’d want to cop on to herself.”

(If you were ever wondering why I don’t have comments enabled on this blog…)

We shall continue the practice of publishing anyway.