I told Amber, I would like to learn how to sing with the voices in registers different from mine.  And that I would like to learn how to sing so it is enjoyable and inspiring for me and others.  I told her that I often couldn’t tell if I was on pitch.

Amber turned on a loop sound making box and it moaned three notes, core, base, high, on and on.  Way below my comfortable register.  Sing this, she said.  (She explained how.)  I stopped half an exhale in: “I don’t know if I am hearing it.”  “You are right on pitch, go on.”

Amber had me sing for her, and for that, I fell apart, then got myself together, so I could hold her in my regard.  Then I could sing for her.  It was different with the two of us there, more difficult, but also easier, because I was responsible.  I wandered along the box’s notes, and away from them, and back.  Every time on pitch, Amber said.

Amber had me sing longing, she had me sing soothing, she had me sing an expression of my choice.  The melodies arrived to meet me.  The longing felt sad and lived in the chest.  The soothing was warm and sweet, it moved freely in soft swirls.  For the expression of my choice, I chose the melody behind a letter I wrote in November, and Amber felt the joy.

If a woman sings alone in a forest and nobody can hear her, does she make a sound?