Some days are like that

I am officially burned out. Between working, teaching, and rehearsing for this upcoming recital I am so over everything. I'm so grouchy right now that I'm even sick of myself, but I'm just so tired and overextended that I can't help it. The best part of my day was the Storm game, even though they lost tonight--I think they were having a rough day too.

So I'm singing on my friend's recital this coming Saturday and I'm performing 2 pieces that she composed. We had rehearsal today and her feedback was great, but I felt a little defensive about it for some reason, which was really annoying. It's a little nervewracking singing a solo in front of the person who wrote it (and who's performed it before), because of course you want to make them happy. Then there's the whole voice teacher thing--we're both teachers, but she has much more experience than I do, plus I'm still honing my technique so sometimes I still get impostor syndrome about my qualifications and ability. Which is pretty stupid considering that I've taken private lessons for 10 years now and have been teaching private lessons for 3 years, plus that whole music degree thing. Why do I have to be such a freaking perfectionist? I think that's what bothered me the most--that she had to make suggestions, like I should have just done it perfectly the first time. Of course that's completely unrealistic, but there it is. If I could change one thing about myself it would be to stop being such a perfectionist. I've managed to mellow out in most parts of my life, but in singing it still persists, and of course that's the area where I most need to chill out--it's hard to have an open, relaxed sound when your body is filled with tension, steeling itself against the criticisms the brain anticipates.

I have such a love/hate relationship with singing; the whole process I described above makes me miserable, gives me stomach aches and makes it hard to sleep sometimes (because along with perfectionism comes the tendency to over-analyze everything). But when I don't sing,or when I think about having a life where I wasn't making music, that seems even more miserable. It's a catch-22. I'm sure I'll feel better tomorrow, and of course it's just one recital; 10 minutes of singing on a Saturday night is really not that big of a deal, even though it felt like it today.