Overcoming your fears: Not easy.

I’ll be COMPLETELY honest with you here:  I could get up in front of 200,000 People and talk, like it’s nothing.

Ask me to SING, for 1 person, or 23,000 though?  That’s a different story.
For YEARS, I struggled with stage fright on the SINGING side ONLY.

Somehow, managed to overcome it and play, locally, with a few bands in my teens and twenties, before dropping it all to focus on the radio career.

The last time I sung, PUBLICLY, without Hiding… was the National Anthem, in front of a crowd of about 2000, if memory serves, in Oromocto New Brunswick while the station I was working for created a HUMAN FLAG as a cool means of sending off our troops that were being deployed to Afghanistan in 2006 or 7.

I’ve never sung in front of anyone, since, unless it was to do a “parody song” with work. True story.

Not even my awesome, amazing wife of over 5 years now, and that crushes me a little. It’s kinda tough to get over, and I’ve been trying a few different things to work up the courage…

A few weeks ago, it was brought to my attention that The Ottawa Senators are holding their “open audition” process for Anthem singers.

 

This year, I’ve been TRYING to force myself to either a) do things I’m not FOND of or b) do things that terrify me, in an attempt to beat em.
SO:  I decided I was gonna try to coax the pipes back into working, even just to SUBMIT an audition, to ME, would be a win.

 

Then, while sifting through the rules n regs for applicants, I stumbled on this:

WHYTHISWAY

Most of that: The Bilingual edition of the Anthem as taught in Schools ACROSS the country.

 

MOST. Not all.

Can’t seem to get why they’d change that ONE line to the other side. Either change the “Our Home and Native Land” one to it’s Franco counterpart as well, or leave it as “in All The Sons Command”…

MAINLY BECAUSE:  Rhyming scheme.

 

I’ve tried to sing it a WHACK of times. It feels incredibly unnatural.

 

Not giving up YET… I’ve reached out for some clarification.

 

PLUS: That means I get a few more days to hide. ;)

 

 

Filed under: fear, fears, Senators, Singing