In 10th grade I was thrilled to land a role in a musical production of Sleeping Beauty. I was the queen, which meant I had a lot of speaking parts, but mainly, I had to sing. Where this came from, I have no idea. After the show my brother told me his friend leaned over to him and said, "I didn't know your sister could sing," to which my brother replied, "I didn't either."
That's because really, I can't. I lucked out with that part and did a good job because it didn't require much of a range. I'm a pretty good actress, but in general I am not a singer. So you can imagine the sharp increase in my blood pressure when a teacher said to me at 8am this morning,
"On Friday I would like you to give a farewell speech to the students, and I would like you to sing Sakura. If you sing it I think students will be very impressed."
Sakura is a traditional Japanese song with a very haunting melody. I learned how to play the intro on a Japanese harp, but I wanted to learn the words so I could sing it when I left Japan. (So I could sing it to myself.) The teacher was happy to write down all the lyrics and sing it with me a couple times so I'd get the hang of things. Sakura's mysterious, lullaby-esque melody forces me to duck my chin in a most unflattering way just to produce some of the sounds. Basically, I can't sing it. So I was quite surprised by the request.
Belting out maternal concern to Sleeping Beauty in front of 1,000 people I can't see due to spotlights is VERY different from eeking out a delicate Japanese melody solo in the intimacy of a classroom. No, no, no. I'll do the speech, but as for the song, I refused in the nicest but firmest way possible.
The teacher was very disappointed, but if I had agreed, I'm sure her disappointment would have been greater. :) Sometimes it's best to quit while you're ahead.
No comments:
Post a Comment