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I spent the last week trying to sing a song that isn’t in my vocal range. I thought, if I brute forced it, I’d be able to create a sound pleasing to myself for a few minutes. I thought I could show that sound to other people.

I did something like this once, a few years ago. I was trying out for a cappella groups during my first year in college. In high school, I had been a baritone, and I didn’t want to be one anymore. So I learned–of all things–“Class of 2013” by Mitski.

I’m going to ignore the obvious observation that that is a terrible song for an a cappella audition. I got into my high school a cappella group with “Many of Horror” by Biffy Fucking Clyro.

I remember sitting in a basement rehearsal room with a piano. Every night, when it got late enough that no one else would have to hear me, I’d go in and take a seat. I tried, for a few days, to do the song in its original key. I drank lemon ginger tea with honey. I returned to my room each night barely able to speak.

It wasn’t working. So I experimented with other keys, trying to find a compromise between the range I had and the range I would give anything to have. I had watched a lot of Whiffenpoofs videos in high school and wanted to build the sort of flexibility I’d heard in their solos. I think I had taken the song down by three whole-steps. Then, on the day of the audition, I gave up.

Instead, with two hours to go, I threw together a hasty arrangement of Elvis’ “Can’t Help Falling in Love.” This is an embarrassing fact that I haven’t revealed to many people. I shifted the key up and moved part of it up the octave, so I could show off the very upper end of my range. I had gotten a callback based on my lows, but I wanted to get in with my highs.

The audition went about like you’d expect. That piece went more-or-less-okay, but more-or-less-okay wasn’t going to get me in. I did well on my sightreading; then absolutely flubbed another song I was supposed to have prepared. I didn’t get in and I let that rejection ruin the first half of my first semester. Like, maybe if I hadn’t tried so desperately with a song I knew I couldn’t sing, I could have made a more inspired choice that was within my range. If I had let myself try out as a baritone, maybe I would have had a better shot. It would have been pragmatic to ignore the stab I felt every time I heard my voice jumping around the bass clef.

It’s passé for me to still be writing about these basic dysphoria things. I don’t think I like writing about them. It makes me feel like I’m fourteen years old. For the most part, I’ve been feeling like a normal person lately. I like how my body looks; I like how I’m perceived; I walk through the world the way I want to, for the most part. The issue of my voice just returns at random times.

This morning, I woke up tired. I drove to work listening to the new Song-I-Can’t-Sing, trying to come up with harmonies that won’t strain my voice and also won’t make me want to kill myself. It was rainy. I’m scared of driving in rain.

When I got to work, I was more tired than I was when I left home. I was interviewing a family for a story and I showed up with a mask on to hide the worse half of my face. I talked as little as I could. It was a twenty-five minute interview. I normally make my in-person interviews at least 45 minutes.

I transferred over to the office and set that story to the side so I wouldn’t have to listen to the interview again. I made a new account on an audio transcription service so I could get a new free trial and skip any sections where I’m speaking. I sat in the office for five hours and still didn’t write anything.

I googled ‘vocal cords.’ Your timbre and range are a question of their thickness, not just their length. Surgery can cut out the bottom of your range but won’t add to the top. Shattering a wine glass takes luck as well as volume. You have to hope you hit the glass’ resonant frequency. Most glass-shattering tricks are done with amplification; one of the only recorded, unamplified shatterings happened on MythBusters, when a rock vocal coach succeeded after several attempts with a 105-decibel tone.

I spent some time wishing the voice could shatter more things beyond fragile, crystalline glass. I wished the growth in my larynx was breakable. I wished I could muster some shout, at some frequency, at some volume, that would rupture it irreparably. I wished some silence would follow, like when puberty was first starting to reach into my throat and I responded by going near-mute for several months.

A few weeks ago, I was watching a fire at an abandoned industrial plant. My job was to speak with some of the firefighters once things were safe. I stood around awkwardly for a while. Then, maybe noticing my confused posture, one of the firefighters turned to the chief and said he’d speak with that young lady over there, gesturing to me. In the moments he was walking over, I mimed some voice training exercises without opening my mouth. He stood in front of me, and we talked, and he was normal, and so was I.