I started singing lessons

This month I did something I've been circling for a year: I found a voice teacher and paid for ten lessons before I could talk myself out of it.

She's a professional singer — a genuinely beautiful voice, the kind that makes you very aware of your own limitations from the first warmup. At the first lesson I sang "After the Glow" for her, because it's the gentlest thing I've written and I figured we should both start somewhere kind.

Here's the thing I want to say about it. I'm a songwriter first. I'm not trying to become a lead singer, and I've made my peace with the fact that some of my own choruses were written for a voice with more ceiling than mine. What I want is simpler: to sit down with a guitar, play the songs I wrote, and have them land on pitch, warm and honest. Songwriter singing. Kris Kristofferson wasn't hitting anybody's high notes either, and nobody ever asked for a refund.

What surprised me is how much like the gym it is. Ten minutes a day, a tuner instead of a mirror, and progress that shows up in tiny increments you'd miss if you weren't logging them. I keep a little chart. Some weeks the chart is flat. The teacher says that's normal and I've decided to believe her.

I'll let you know how it goes. If some months from now a rougher, lower, more Floridian voice shows up on one of these songs — be nice to him. He's been practicing.