When to Quit

The staff at my school recently filled out a survey about our lives: Favourite sandwich, patron saint, why we work with kids. The worst question asked was what our most embarrassing experience was. Most teachers' descriptions were pretty minor league: Forgetting a drivers license, losing the car in the Walmart parking lot, tripping and falling.

My answer was perhaps a bit more major. To this day, it embarrasses me. I sang Schubert's Ave Maria in a wedding. Solo.

The scenario: Summer, 1996. My friend Diane asked me to solo the Ave Maria as she would walk down the aisle. I reminded Diane that I don't really have a solo-type of voice. She assured me that it was fine; she said she would rather have someone sing it who understood its significance. I agreed to sing it and quickly found a voice coach.

I went twice a week to voice lessons. I practiced religiously (excuse the pun) -- not just the song, but the breathing exercises and all the other peripheral stuff that was supposed to help me improve. My teacher was incredibly positive who gave me liberal doses of encouragement and feedback. A month before the wedding, I asked my brother and his wife to come to my lesons with me. My sister in law is blessed with musical ability that doesn't seem to exist in my family. She listened to me politely and then made polite comments that let me know that I had a long way to go. I remember thinking, okay, I have a month to conquer my poor performance. I can do anything I put my mind to. I'm a Farrell. And I am not a quitter.

Cecilia, my best girlfriend of many moons, suggested that I perform it in a more quiet, whispy, meditative voice. At that time, I was offended -- I knew that such tactics were inconsistent with proper voice performance. In retrospect, she was trying to tell me kindly not to attempt "proper voice performance." That was wise advice and I was a fool for not taking it.

On the actual day of the wedding, I went an hour early to rehearse. After I ran through the song, Greg Walton (a professional musician and my accompanist that day -- see www.gregwalton.com) told me that if I wanted, he would sing it. "I make old ladies cry," he advised. Again, a kind way of saying, "Oh my goodness, just let me do this and save all these people from listening to you!" I should have acquiesced; I just didn't get his message loud and clear.

We have all been to weddings where the soloist, an amateur with a "good" voice, sings horribly. It is uncomfortable to sit through. Worse (for the singer), it becomes a sort of conversation piece at the reception. No one wants to be that singer. Reality cannot be disputed: Choir voices do not have the rich, operatic qualities necessary for solo performances. I do not have the control nor the confidence to sing on my own, especially to 300+ people. I was the conversation piece that day, and when I was done singing, I knew it.

The Ave Maria opened Mass that day, so I had to endure then entire ceremony after I finished the song. I stepped back from the microphone, unsure of how I had done. I could tell right away, though: There were no positive glances or smiles. I knew I had bombed when not one person in that choir made a gesture to let me know I had done a good job. I was humiliated. When Mass was over, I ran for my car and drove home in tears. Feeling that I had ruined the wedding ceremony, I laid in my bed and cried for the rest of the day.

I asked Diane later what she thought. She told me she was so focused on getting down the aisle, she never heard me. Kind, but probably somewhat untrue. She didn't know how to tell me I had wasted all that voice lesson money -- and failed her.

Recently I brought it up with a friend who was in attendance. He looked at me sideways and admitted quietly, "Yeah, that was not great." Not great. As is my M.O., I immediately defended myself: I am not a professional! I was nervous! I was scared! He replied with something about how he was sure that my vocal chords were tight from my being so tense. Yeah, that's it -- I was a bomb because I was tense, not because I am devoid of talent.

Even though 9 years have passed, it still stung to be told that I was "not great." In the past several weeks, my thoughts returned often to the humiliation I felt then, and it is just as fresh today.

Perhaps it is timely, then, that my family watched Greg Walton this week on EWTN's "Backstage." I watched him sing and remembered him telling me that his rendition of the Ave Maria makes the old ladies cry. He is so talented -- it must have pained him to accompany me on piano that day. I sat on my couch with my husband, watching him on TV, wondering if he thought less of me 9 years ago for attempting something I had no business trying.

I insisted on performing per Diane's request because I was raised to not be a quitter. I wanted desperately to take Greg up on his offer of singing for me, but I chose not to because I didn't want to give anyone the impression that I let stage fright get the best of me.

I'm not a quitter. I'm not a quitter. I'm not a quitter!

If there is a moral of the story, it is that sometimes, it is okay to quit. You just have to know when it is prudent to stick with it and when it is indeed better to give up. I made a mistake 9 years ago by not letting it go. I should have told Diane upfront that perhaps I could lead a rosary before Mass instead of singing. I should have let Greg sing. I should have not put such emphasis on perseverance. If I had quit, who would have cared? It would have saved me from being known to 300 people as The Girl Who Cannot Sing.

P.S. Sorry, Diane!