[Loraine]

Thanks for the vote of confidence, Moose! You are correct. I was never gonna be a great guitarist or a great singer, and I did have to get over my fear and decided to post the good the bad and the ugly. I think that by doing so it actually made me a better player or singer. I know it brought me out of a severe depression that I had for quite a while and it helped me get over my shyness. I was so painfully afraid of people.

Most people would probably be quite shocked to learn that I actually sang quite beautifully when I was younger. I was a Soprano even. I think it was Soprano II. . Several things happened over many many years since I was a child. I smoked for many years, I have had chronic ear and sinus issues since I was young, and they’re still ongoing. The seem to be worsening by the year. I had sinus surgery where they had to rebuild the whole bridge in my nose Because the nostrils kept collapsing. The surgery caused a lot of change in my vocals. I have severe allergies which add to it. My hearing is not that great, Chronic ear infections and small ear canals that just seemed to shrink and get worse, have made it difficult not only can I not hear myself, but my allergies cause a lot of ear problems. . I have a very deadpan voice that holds no emotion and that’s just for years of dealing with some difficult people in my life and having to keep my voice very low and soft to get them to Quiet down and listen and to not rock the boat. So it was basically to try to keep everything status quo and it became habitual. It’s funny. I never talked much growing up at all, and that continued all the way through my adult life up until probably Covid. During Covid talking came to a screeching halt basically because I became locked in the house with a mother who had dementia and we could not hold conversations so my vocal chords atrophied. It is the same thing as if you don’t exercise you lose muscle mass and so I lost my vocal cords. They basically atrophied, and my voice dropped significantly, and it is very difficult to build up the muscle tone again, and to start using the vocal cords more and more I used to be able to carry a tune, and I cannot carry a tune for the life of me toda. My mom cracked me up when she had her wits about her because she would sing at the top of her lungs, and from a young age, I would beg her not to sing because she had the worst voice. Then she got Spasmodic Dysphonia, a form of Distonia, and had to get her vocal cords injected every three months so she could talk, but it was painful to hear her talk when she did not have the injections. People could not understand her because she had no control over her vocal cords.

So I found a vocal teacher, and I enjoyed my lessons initially. I actually could hit every pitch except for there were one note that I could not hit for the life of me. She said it was like I just had a brick wall when I got to that note but everything else above and blow it and I could do the scales perfectly, and I could sing the songs and they were much higher than what I’ve been singing because I sing at a comfort level And I felt like she was having me sing you know more soprano or even high alto, I guess, which she said I was a true alto. Unfortunately, I did not last long and the lessons,because of the cost, but also it felt like it was too much work and it wasn’t fun and all honesty when you had to follow it up with practice. It wasn’t like the guitar that brought me joy from the get go. It felt like it was gonna be a lot more labor intensive. But it really wasn’t it. It’s just something that Didn’t speak to my soul I guess at the time. She was a really good teacher, but I wish I had shopped around a little bit to find someone I really clicked with, and that would work with me on the types of songs I wanted to sing.

Anyway, mostly you know I can’t shut up now. Something got triggered in me. I think it really is because I finally stopped hiding behind my imperfections and put Tony’s lessons to work in my own life and stopped trying to work towards perfection and just try to work towards progress. It’s been a hell of a lot of fun.