She moves the microphone out of the way and hands me a pair of boxing gloves. ‘Put these on.’
‘I signed up for singing, not boxing lessons,’ I say doubtfully.
‘Trust me!’
I put the gloves on and turn to face the wall. Feeling somewhat foolish, I punch the wall and cry, ‘Давай!’ (My teacher, by a happy coincidence, is Russian.)
She jabs me just below my ribs. ‘Engage the diaphragm!’
I punch the wall again: ‘Давай!’
‘Don’t forget to smile! A Joker smile – wider, wider – yes! You need to make space in your mouth for the sound.’
‘Давай! Давай! Давааай!’
‘Yes! Yes!’ She jumps up and down excitedly. ‘Wonderful! Здорово! How did that feel?’
‘Good.’ In truth, I’m not quite sure how to express it: it didn’t feel like my voice. It was… louder. More powerful.
‘You see,’ she says, delightedly, not in the slightest deterred by my short answer. ‘It works. Молодец. Again!’
I am buzzing when I return home afterwards. ‘Where have you been then?’ my flatmate asks. ‘You’re in a particularly good mood!’
‘I had my first singing lesson,’ I tell him proudly.
He’s surprised. ‘How come?’
It’s not as simple as always wanting to learn to sing. Two years ago, I had been asked by the British Army to give a talk at an event they run for young people. I was so nervous that my voice shook and the audience thought I was about to burst into tears. I was overcome with frustration: even though I was confident enough to stand in front of a room full of people, my voice betrayed me.
It wasn’t the first time. Public speaking has never been my forte. What makes it worse is that I can hear my voice tremble, and then it starts to shake even more.
It’s not even just when I’m nervous. It also happens when I’m unsure of myself or feeling stressed. When I started teaching, my boss told me that my voice lacked authority.
I decided to do something about it. My other flatmate, a speech therapy student, encouraged me: ‘The voice is a muscle that needs to be trained. You just need to exercise it.’
Indeed, I exercise my body every day – I should do the same for my voice. And there’s nothing like a challenge to motivate me. Maybe I could even kill two birds with one stone and learn to sing as well (hitting the right notes was never a particular strength of mine either).
Having finished the essays that had occupied me for most of the summer, I had three weeks off before the new semester started. I couldn’t go away, and my friends couldn’t come to visit, so I had plenty of time to find a singing teacher. In fact, it didn’t take long: a quick Google search brought me to an online tutoring website, and my email query was answered within 24 hours. A few days later, I was hitting the wall with fists and loud Russian.
My voice is not yet as strong as I’d like it to be – I certainly won’t submit you to a rendition. But I’ve taken the first punch.
