In early Spring, 2012, I fly to Darwin to address two groups of accountants. I'm doing a late afternoon presentation and a breakfast speech. Darwin is warm and tropical. It feels good to take off my jacket when I get off the plane.
I check into the hotel and after a couple of hours it's time for me to go downstairs for the event. People begin to arrive and I greet and mingle. One man asks me "Are you going to sing and dance?" I say "Probably not - why do you ask?" He says "I saw you here two years ago".
Ah yes, I'd forgotten. The last time I was in Darwin, I spoke at a Leadership conference. I spoke about innovative thinking, and I used the Shirley Bassey song "History Repeating" to underline my point that without new ideas, we fall back on our habits and keep repeating the past. I sang to a backing track and a friend's daughter had a choreographed a dance routine for me. My fellow speakers didn't know I could sing, and had never seen me dance, and they were open-mouthed. From the stage I could see their jaws gaping.
At the end of this day-long conference, all the speakers had dinner together. They told me that during my song, a woman in the audience had been overcome with emotion, and had needed to be comforted. She thought I was "so courageous".
You can never tell what sort of response your performance will produce. I discovered that music is a powerful tool, to be used with lots of care and responsibility. It was perhaps a bit weird to immediately follow a business presentation with a song-and-dance routine. Some of the more experienced speakers offered recommendations for using music. I should get the audience to participate, or put the song in the middle of the speech and then explain it, or abbreviate the song rather than sing all of the verses. You live and you learn.
But obviously it was memorable.
Towards the end of the year, Rohan holds a Christmas concert for his singing students. I decide to sing "The Christmas Song" ("Chestnuts roasting on an open fire..."), but in French. I find the English lyrics quite "cheesy", but in French the song sounds lovely. I'd sung this song at Cabaret Live a year earlier, and my entire focus was on remembering the French lyrics. Now I reprise the song and I can develop my performance, because I already know the words.
The song goes well, and I feel I've come a long way. First, to be able to remember English lyrics on stage, and not forget my words. Then, to move beyond remembering the words, to be able to interpret the song. Then to remember French lyrics (I can actually speak French), then to interpret the song.
The next challenge? To learn some of my Brazilian songs in Portuguese.
Video of "The Christmas Song" in French
I check into the hotel and after a couple of hours it's time for me to go downstairs for the event. People begin to arrive and I greet and mingle. One man asks me "Are you going to sing and dance?" I say "Probably not - why do you ask?" He says "I saw you here two years ago".
Ah yes, I'd forgotten. The last time I was in Darwin, I spoke at a Leadership conference. I spoke about innovative thinking, and I used the Shirley Bassey song "History Repeating" to underline my point that without new ideas, we fall back on our habits and keep repeating the past. I sang to a backing track and a friend's daughter had a choreographed a dance routine for me. My fellow speakers didn't know I could sing, and had never seen me dance, and they were open-mouthed. From the stage I could see their jaws gaping.
At the end of this day-long conference, all the speakers had dinner together. They told me that during my song, a woman in the audience had been overcome with emotion, and had needed to be comforted. She thought I was "so courageous".
You can never tell what sort of response your performance will produce. I discovered that music is a powerful tool, to be used with lots of care and responsibility. It was perhaps a bit weird to immediately follow a business presentation with a song-and-dance routine. Some of the more experienced speakers offered recommendations for using music. I should get the audience to participate, or put the song in the middle of the speech and then explain it, or abbreviate the song rather than sing all of the verses. You live and you learn.
But obviously it was memorable.
Towards the end of the year, Rohan holds a Christmas concert for his singing students. I decide to sing "The Christmas Song" ("Chestnuts roasting on an open fire..."), but in French. I find the English lyrics quite "cheesy", but in French the song sounds lovely. I'd sung this song at Cabaret Live a year earlier, and my entire focus was on remembering the French lyrics. Now I reprise the song and I can develop my performance, because I already know the words.
The song goes well, and I feel I've come a long way. First, to be able to remember English lyrics on stage, and not forget my words. Then, to move beyond remembering the words, to be able to interpret the song. Then to remember French lyrics (I can actually speak French), then to interpret the song.
The next challenge? To learn some of my Brazilian songs in Portuguese.
Video of "The Christmas Song" in French
No comments:
Post a Comment