09/02/2023
Don’t bring politeness to my door! Burp, fart, yawn…etc. These are somatic responses from stimuli that happen naturally in vocal production. Toot away! 💨
BTW - I have bi weekly openings this fall!
How much do you care about being polite? How uncomfortable are you willing to make yourself, for the purpose of being considered polite? What does it even mean, to be polite?
If you are genuinely concerned about the comfort and wellbeing of those around you, you cannot help but be attentive and kind towards them.
"Politeness" is the performative version of that. You may even genuinely care about the comfort and wellbeing of those around you, but rather than trust yourself to communicate that from the heart, you feel that you have to express your caring and respect ritualistically.
Singing is its own ritual, and it is incompatible with performative politeness. It often involves the passionate expression of feelings in a way that would be considered very impolite in other settings.
Plus, it may make you fart and burp, activities that our culture deems impolite.
My students often burp in lessons. Working on breath coordination involves expanding and engaging stuff in the abdomen in ways that will jostle the stomach and release any swallowed air (we all swallow a little air sometimes—releasing swallowed air is what burping mostly *is*).
Singers often fart in lessons and performance. Singing requires that you sustain a heightened level of intra-abdominal pressure over the course of a sung phrase—the longer and more intense the phrase, the more this pressure level is sustained, and it will have an impact on all the other things that are going on inside your body. Digestion doesn't just go on hold for the duration of your performance, and thank goodness, or it would be difficult to keep your energy up. If you wanted to inhibit the farts, you'd have to stop singing, because you'd have to back off the pressure.
Burping and farting are healthy, normal ways that our bodies dispose of unwanted gas. Please do not apologize for burping in your lessons, as it will direct your focus away from the work we are doing and towards a subtle form of self-body-shaming.
If you find yourself farting in performance, you can try changing up the timing and composition of your pre-performance meals, but just know that it's just your body taking care of itself so that you can make beautiful music with it. Occasionally the vibrations occur at both ends of the digestive tract, but it's the ones coming out of your mouth that matter.
