Album Update

It looks like things will be starting up again in November, God willing and the crick don't rise.

We pretty much have to start from scratch, thanks to the destruction of the masters by the taper machine. However, we do already have arrangements and chordings for a good chunk of the songs. So it's not starting from the absolute beginning.

Unfortunately, recording my album will entail listening to the sound of my own voice. Contrary to the impression you might get from hearing me go off into long impromptu lectures, I do not really enjoy that sound. Oh, I know objectively that my voice isn't too bad. But the same objectivity points out every mistake I ever make, and if those aren't evident enough, every missed opportunity and every way I fail to measure up to the great voices of history. My subjective self streaks between absolute loathing and an acknowledgment that things aren't too bad.

All that said, when the creativity is flowing, I can get very interested and excited and delighted by my singing and my songs. But like the subjective experience of spirituality, this is cyclical and paid for by long experiences of "dryness", when I feel intensely depressed and abandoned by what I suppose is best called the Spirit. Of course I know not to trust my subjective experience or my objective one, as both are usually rather cruel and unhelpful if taken without a grain of salt. But it's hard to have to spend so much time trudging along with nothing but a vague faith that things will turn out all right.

Still, after a sore throat last week I managed to cantor for two Masses on Sunday. The happiness of having sung, and sung before the Lord, made even my little internal editors allow as how I hadn't done too badly. (My voice did wobble alarmingly, and I kept running out of breath at odd moments. But for some reason my voice is sometimes quite pretty in tone just recently, and it was very sweet indeed on Sunday.) I think if I can just make myself practice more, sleep more, eat more, and generally live healthily enough not to get sick again, it really may turn out all right. But I have to practice and sleep, because it's practice and sleep that create consistency.