8 years of practice makes perf...average at best

I've been learning to play guitar for something like 8 years. I don't remember exactly when I started, but I know my first guitar was a gift from Grandma and Grandpa during the first year or two that Sarah and I were married. I always still say that I'm learning to play because I'm just ok at it, and it's been a long process. Even if it's slow, at least I keep improving.

The whole time I've been learning to play, I've also been working on my singing voice. When I started, my singing was bad. Really bad. Comically bad. Sarah's mom and sister used to poke each other and snicker at me during church. True story.

I don't really mind being bad at things. That being said, I absolutely hate being bad at something that I devote time to practicing. Like singing. Or playing the guitar. So, I toiled away for years without much improvement in the singing department and only a little improvement in the guitar department. It was very frustrating. I told you, I don't do well when I devote time to something and don't get better at it. It makes me so mad!

I don't know when it happened, but I think the musical area in my brain started to change at some point in the last year or two. I saw very modest, slow improvement. Then about a month ago, I was trying to sing "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown." I say, "trying," because I can never sing this song. Can't hit most of the notes. But I kept going anyway. And I started hitting the notes. All of them. I kept singing but moved on to other songs that I'd never been able to get quite right. And I could sing those too. Totally weird. It was like my brain and my throat finally figured out how to sing a full range of notes. Actually, I think that might be what happened.

Fast forward to last week at church. I was singing along, like usual, and trying not to annoy the people in front of me. During greeting time, the woman in front of me quickly wheeled around, took my hand, told me what a nice voice I had, and said she loves worshiping when good singers sit near her.

I told her she might want to get her hearing checked. Even so the compliment was so nice to hear. Like music to my ears. Get it? Music? Singing? Then, this week a guy next to me patted me on the shoulder as we were leaving and said, "Nice job singing!"

Eight years of practice for two compliments? Totally worth it.