February 14, 2025
There’s a thing in choral singing called “stagger breathing.”
That’s when there’s a long, long phrase to sing, and the composer hasn’t given anyone a good spot to take a breath.
That’s not by mistake.
The composer wants the physically impossible to sound effortlessly seamless.
But the people need to breathe!
So we stagger breathe – inhale more air whenever you want, just not when the person next to you does. That keeps the sound coming, keeps the composer’s vision aloft, and keeps us from passing out.
We stagger breathe so we don’t stagger.
A couple of dear friends have told me that they’re on a news diet these days. There’s just too much Crazy, too much Stupid, too much War, too much to process. They need a break. Their hearts and brains are breaking.
I get it.
My LGBTQ+ and federally-employed family has a front row seat to the current dumpster fire.
“If I lose my job, what do I do next?” and “I live in Europe now. Can I safely travel home again?” are a couple of the questions my loved ones are wrestling with these days.
Turning off the news doesn’t feel like an option for me. I want to stay with them at the dumpster fire and support them however they need me to. But I need to stagger breathe.
That looks like following the federal workforce and anti-trans news and trusting that other people are on top of ICE and Guantanamo, tariffs and Senate confirmation hearings. I’ve got bandwidth for NATO and none for the Department of Education.
I never thought I’d say that, and I have to keep my wits about me.
Thankfully, I’m not in this choir alone. None of us is in this choir alone.
I will sing when you need a breath. You’ll sing when I need one. Together, we’ll keep the phrases moving.
Podcast News: A couple of episodes ago, I talked about Why Private Lessons for Choral Singers are a Good Idea. I totally forgot to mention stagger breathing, but that’s another one. It takes practice to exit and re-enter a phrase gracefully. I can help with that. Schedule a free 20-minute consultation to learn more.
