Ragtimbre

Hi folks,

I hope that all of your moms had a wonderful Mommy's Day! God bless moms and all the love and patience they show, especially to their headstrong daughters who grow up to want to sing and act instead of becoming doctors and lawyers. Crazy kids... Thanks to those of you who came out to Hooch last Saturday night. We had a full room and the audience seemed to have a great time at the Boy Crazy show. Much gratitude to Kirsten, Leah, Michelle, Hunter, Karen, Courtney and Harmony for lending your sweet voices to a fine tribute to male singer-songwriters. I greatly appreciated all of your contributions and the lovely sets that each of you did. I can't wait until next year's show...

...so that I can do a better job! Every vocalist has a particular timbre to his or her voice that is that optimal sound - the milk&honey sound. It happens when all of the physical and emotional elements of singing fuse perfectly and what comes out of you is exactly what you want to. Try as I might, I couldn't find it at the Boy Crazy show. It was the weirdest feeling. I was up there and the notes were coming out, but it felt like I was someone else trying to imitate me and not doing a particularly good job. I can honestly say that in eight years of performing I've never felt quite so outside of my skin during a show. Perhaps it was nervousness that came with singing songs that I have absolute reverence for... or maybe it was just one of those nights. Either way, it made some of the comments I got immediately after and in the days following mean that much more to me. Some really nice things were said about my performance at a time when I wasn't feeling good about it at all, and they lifted my spirits a lot. So thank you.

I've had inquiries about the upcoming run of Ragtime that I'll be in at the end of May. We're in the Toronto Centre for the Arts' Studio Theatre, a very intimate and small space, so tickets are selling fast. The only dates still with good availability are Friday May 26th, Friday June 2nd and Sunday June 4th and tix can be purchased through Ticketmaster. I'm playing the role of Harlem Woman in the show. Apparently the folks in Harlem are so poor that they can't afford names. =)

Just one last thought... my experience at Boy Crazy made me think a lot about a similar feeling we often have in our own day-to-day, that feeling of not quite being able to find the sweet spot where the tone is pristine and the overtones are perfect multiples of all that is good and authentic and true in our lives. While I was up there searching for myself I had no idea why it was happening; it wasn't until days after that I saw it. The point is to find the timbre of you, the unmistakable sound that is distinct to your own voice and your own breath and your own heartbeat. It can be so easily drowned out by noise both external and internal that one day you find yourself like me at that mic, unable to recall your own voice because just for a moment you've forgotten what it sounds like. I feel very differently about performing now, in a good way. The word "perform" might be the problem; it implies both pressure and pretending. Maybe the thing for every person to do - whether there is a stage or not - is to just be. Without the pretense, the timbre of you is the only sound you are capable of making.

I can't wait to get back onstage.

Peace&Patience, Tanisha