So my singing hasn't been going terribly well lately; in fact, my jaw has been locking up more and more every week. I had a rehearsal that was epically bad this past Monday, and it made me almost die in public.

I cried. In front of people. Holy crap.

So the next day, I met with a person who offered to take a look and see if she could help me figure out what's going on. We tried some stuff, it went okay, and now I'm adding some of it to my normal stuff. I'm also telling all my students about it so they know that it's definitely normal to have bad times, and we don't have to let it keep us from doing what we need to do to be singers. We just keep going until we can't anymore.

I'm getting perilously close to that "can't," but I'm not quite there. We'll see after a few weeks of trying.

At any rate, there are a lot of things that I'm trying, but there are two that, by far, are killing me. The other things, like stopping immediately and moving my jaw and tongue around when I even start to feel a tiny pull, are super easy and also feel much better. The ones that suck? I have to practice looking into a mirror, and I can only practice for twenty minutes at a time.

I am dying.

I don't want to see what I look like when I'm making sounds that call to mind a dying cow. It's not pretty. Sometimes I drool, and quite often, I see a zit or a stray eyebrow, and then I have to go fix it, and it just ruins my concentration. And stopping after twenty minutes? Come on.

I usually sing for about an hour at a stretch. It's not always good, but I push through.

And that's just what is not helping my problem.

Ugh.

So I'll give it a shot. It's better than encouraging the muscles in my neck to tense up and feel like a Charley horse up in my face, but it is also seriously annoying.

I may die.

Okay, maybe not die, but still. Yuck.

There better be beer for dinner tonight. That is all.