Every Time I Sing, I Cry This is how one drummer found her singing voice.
by Shaina Joy Machlus Illustration by Camila Rosa The first time I actually sang, I cried. It was only a few nervous tears, enough to dampen my shirt cuff but not enough to demand the attention of my teacher. Perhaps due to my anxiety, my inaugural class was completed outside of my own body. I watched myself leave my shoes at the heavy door, put on bright pink house slippers, shuffle through the hall and the sparse living room into the sun-soaked balcony enclosed in glass. I saw myself sit down in the wobbly, plastic folding chair, look out onto the gardens and balconies of the other neighbors—my audience. I watched myself hear the tap of a finger on the plastic electronic keyboard; what sounded like Morse code: SOS.
Tap, tap, tap. It was my call to begin, to repeat. When I didn’t respond, she repeated the same note. I watched myself open my mouth and push out silent air. I remember the thought: “Does anyone ever really know where to begin?” Of course they do. There was the sensation that everyone else never actually starts at the beginning, that they were all experts from the very start. At 26, I found out that it was not too late for this bird to find its song. All I had to do was spread my wings and land halfway around the world from my New Jersey home. There, in Barcelona, swept up in the struggle for Catalan independence, I found my singing voice.
28 TOM TOM MAGA ZI NE
Most people have no memory of their first attempt to sing. It was something that happened in toddlerhood, in passing. Their odd notes casually floated away with laughter, claps, a chorus of people joining in. That is not to say my childhood was not filled with music. Still, I had the strong feeling I had never personally experienced this milestone. I carried only one true memory of singing. I was driving an old Volvo station wagon through a particularly lush part of New York State. I rolled down the passenger window beside my then lover, opened my mouth wide as could go, filled my lungs with summer air, and tried to let song escape me. The sound I made was so far from my intended
aria, I kept quiet ever since. Unless alcohol persuaded me otherwise. There was the time I sang “Single Ladies” and the karaoke bar pretended to be closing in order to keep me from singing again. Or when my microphone was taken away mid-“Say My Name.” The December before I turned 30, something shifted. While at a very ordinary concert, I decided I couldn’t spend the rest of my ordinary life not knowing what it felt like to sing. To live a life afraid of your own voice is no way to live. I chose the very first instructor I called. Probably because I did not know any other singing instructors. Also because her name was Romi and I loved the way she spoke in a thick Argentinian accent about her nontraditional singing method of accessing your inner child: “gritando como una niña.” Classes were 30 minutes twice a week. I always arrived promptly, ready to take my shoes off and begin.
where my tears came from—although the two seemed to function in parallel. It was a strange, but not altogether disagreeable feeling to pry myself both open and closed simultaneously. On the morning of October 2, 2017, I pressed the number four apartment button and rode the beautiful but creaky elevator up to Romi’s place. I took my seat beside her and her keyboard. Unlike our first class, I felt glued inside my heavy body.
It took me two whole sessions to make any noise at all. Our classes were always the
I had spent the previous day on the streets of Barcelona, from 4 a.m. until 11:30 p.m. There was a referendum to determine whether the northwest region of Spain, Catalunya, would succeed and become its own independent country. The Spanish government in Madrid deemed this election unconstitutional. But back in Catalunya, my home for the last five years, no one could have imagined the violence that was unleashed by the government against its peacefully gathered citizens waiting to vote. National
same; Romi would progressively tap a higher and higher note on the keyboard in quick threes: tap, tap, tap. I would repeat the note as best as I could, yelling in short bursts a sound that was halfway between an “ah!” and an “oh!” To my surprise, creating these noises slowly opened up a space inside of me. A space that was the opposite of
police were deployed and told to stop the voting by any means necessary. Over 1,000 people were hospitalized because of police beatings. A rubber bullet took one person’s eye, another had her fingers broken one by one and was sexually assaulted, blood stained the halls of the elementary schools that had been used as voting stations.
