I think I mentioned before that I have been taking voice lessons. Then I got the brilliant idea that I wanted to learn how to sing because one day I was sick and wanted to sing, “I've got chills. They’re multiplying.” So obviously I needed to learn the song from Grease.

I reached out to my teacher and asked for singing lessons. After the first lesson she told me, “You’re not tone-deaf,” but singing is still not an obvious strength of mine. She said there are two types of people: for some, it comes naturally; others need to learn it like any other skill.

I was obviously one of the ones who needs to work at it, which is fun for me. I already knew that and I'm ready to work on it. It's fun. I enjoy it and I love learning.

However, one thing I hadn’t taken into consideration is that, unlike dancing, singing is a lot like sorcery. You can have that middle C one moment, and it escapes the next. Even if your breath and mouth shape are correct and you’re thinking about where the sound is coming from, if you can’t tune your voice to what you hear, it doesn’t match. It’s almost like a guessing game. It’s sorcery.

That's what it is. That's what I tell my teacher. Every time I'm like what's the secret? Because I can't get it.

It is improving, and I’ll continue to practice. But unlike dancing, singing is not something you can see and replicate. You have to hear it and replicate it, and that is turning out to be harder than I thought.

With dancing, you can see your teacher. You can see the muscles and the movement. With voice, you cannot—unless you’re a dentist, and I’m not a dentist. I’m definitely not a doctor. I would not want to be a doctor.

Looking inside mouths is not my thing, so no thank you. I just want to learn how to sing. But the entire process is very interesting to me. If dancing had not taught me how to stay with a skill—if I had not seen what comes from committing, showing up, and learning—I think I would have given up on singing because it is so invisible.

You can't see your muscles inside your mouth tuning to match the pitch. So how do I know that is in the correct position in order to recreate the pitch that I need to nail that middle C? I don't know. It's magic.

I tell you it's magic. That's what I keep saying anyway. But I know it's practice. But it just makes me laugh because every time I actually match the pitch, I'm more surprised than my teacher and I don't even know how I got there.

But I got there. I just can’t recreate it yet. It takes me a while. I’ve also learned that this is a great opportunity to see how I can begin giving language to the process.

Learning to sing is about making the invisible visible. It is helping me think about the language I can use to share this experience with others. When I think about Clarity Architecture—the discipline I’m working on—it is also about taking messy situations that are not obvious to everyone and asking: What is causing this situation to continue and repeat? Is there an obvious solution? What are the layers inside it?

It's about making the invisible visible. So how do you do that? So I'm taking this as an opportunity to learn. How do I give things like this, situations like this, vocabulary in order to be able to express situations like this in a better way?

Sometimes the underlying problem causing a messy situation is not visible. You have to dig, search, and untangle it. As you untangle it, you need words that reveal its bones and structure—not only for yourself, but for the people you’re working with—so you can create a shared understanding.

I believe that as I continue learning to sing and things begin to click—when, one day, I can match pitch and understand how my ear influences my voice—I’ll gain more vocabulary for defining how to make the invisible visible.

At the end of the day, things like these connect. Singing can connect to situations in Clarity Architecture, just as dancing helped me create metaphors for my faith and my connection with Christ. Things always connect.

So it's very thrilling for me when I find a hobby or I find something that sparks my obsession in thinking, why can't I get this? There's something more here for me. So I'm really looking forward to learning more about singing, seeing what else this unravels for me and how I can share more about what I'm learning with everyone. So I really look forward to making the invisible visible to everyone and sharing about the process.

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