The Passagio: My Messy Middle
Earlier this fall, I did something I’d been intending to for years. Something I’d been talking about since I took my sabbatical in 2018, and consistently back burnered at the expense of other projects or endeavors.
As I wrote in a previous blog post, September’s cooler temperatures surfaced a desire to try something new. I was looking for something different, giving me the opportunity to learn new things, embrace experimentation, and bring a shot of creativity to my life.
I signed up for voice lessons.
Taking classes to improve my singing – which can be heard most frequently while I’m cooking, driving, and at various karaoke gatherings – meant dedicating time and practice to something that felt a bit indulgent. When the thought of doing it resurfaced this fall, I wondered if it truly was a lark; an impulse that came and went since I never actually signed up. The more I thought about it, I realized it could be a new outlet. Something fun, with low risk. Something allowing me to recapture the joy of my younger self, since singing in chorus and plays was something I really loved as a kid.
In my first lesson, my instructor asked “What are your singing goals?” I responded with “Having fun and seeing what my voice is capable of.” At that moment, I shifted into seeing my voice as its own instrument. Saying it out loud made me feel more confident about bringing whatever I could to this new practice, while not getting too attached to a specific set of results. Honestly, who knows what else I might do with my singing – if there’s a band, chorus, or who knows what in my future. What I do know right now is this endeavor is about developing a skill and using one of my talents in a new way.
I’ve only taken a handful of lessons so far, and it’s proving to be both joyous and eye-opening. I’m learning the biology around how our bodies create sound, ways to harness the breath through different techniques, and focusing on how to develop my passagio.
Experimenting with the passagio is fascinating since I’m testing the limits of my body – literally using my physical toolkit to transition between vocal registers. I’m realizing the extent to which my body is limited by my mind: how I stiffen various muscles and contract my breath based on conceptions of what notes I can and can’t sing well. My instructor is encouraging me to warm up and experience my body. I’m using exercises to physically loosen up, looking ridiculous as I wave my arms around to hit higher notes, bouncing up and down to unhook from what I think I should be doing. And to my surprise, it’s freeing me up in new ways I didn’t expect.
It strikes me that singing the passagio is similar to other transformations we experience: the ways we move through discomfort by testing ourselves and trying new things. This liminal space – the “messy middle” – is where we adopt different techniques, construct hacks, and disrupt what’s in our regular rotation to achieve the goal of creating a smoother experience.
The passagio is my messy middle, and I love that it mirrors what I do professionally. Just as I partner with leaders to realize growth through transformation journeys, working through the passagio opens me up to where I’m creating friction and how to move beyond it to achieve agility and grace.
