A Hard Knock Life
I stood there, panting, feeling empty.
“You need to project!” Mrs. Lee scolded. “Are you belly breathing?”
I gulped, nodding. “Yes, ma’am.”
A sympathetic smile broke the stony facade of her lips. “Let’s try it again then.”
As empty as I felt, I took in a fresh breath of air, deep as my lungs would allow, and let loose a soaring A-flat, tumbling down F, E-flat, D, and languishing in a sonorous C.
But it happened again. My voice began to tremble and hollow out. The emptiness returned. Eyes wide, I sucked in enough air to stumble on to the next phrase, but Mrs. Lee stopped me with a wave of her arms.
“That’s enough for today, Ms. Frank. We’ll try again tomorrow. Remember to do your breathing exercises before bed.”
I nodded, too tired to force a smile. Head down, I grabbed my book bag and music binder and shuffled out of the studio.
That night, I stared into the mirror for a long time before I started doing my exercises. A small girl looked back. Well, she wasn’t really very small, coming in well above average at 5' 9". And she wasn’t really a girl. She was a 28-year-old tech support specialist taking voice lessons from the retired music teacher in apartment 38.
