Cheats

June 20th

I enrolled in a 6-week voiceover course through The Victorian College of the Arts, part of Melbourne University. Louise, our instructor was great and demanded a lot of us -- including buckets of homework.
The first portion of the course focused on commercial work, not my strongstuit, a fact exacerbated by my total lack of interest in it. Oh sure, some of them were fun, but feedback like "make your voice warmer" left me utterly confounded. Louise was equally perplexed: on my final short commercial read, she said when I'm speaking regularly or telling a story, my voice has the exact "ping" needed for commercial work, but as soon as I read an ad, it disappears. We both gave a "that sucks" shoulder shrug and I sat down.

The following week, we were onto longer reads. Hello. Now we're talking. The dark horse of the class, I came out of nowhere (even with a nasty head cold).
Endurance and maintaining energy levels are what make longer reads difficult, apparently. But talking a lot isn't much of a problem for me. Plus, I have some cheats:
1) I'm quite adept at cold/sight reads and,
2) my family has a great tradition of reading aloud.

The latter goes beyond typical storytime: in my family, whenever there's an article of interest, it will invariably be read aloud in lieu of passing it to the other party. Even if someone is beside me and reading over my shoulder, I will nonetheless read the material to them.

The next week, children's books and characterization. An impressive performance with "Too Loud Lily" -- of course, how can you go wrong with talking hippos?
Pete, however, brought the house down with "Are You My Mother?" I had tried to find a copy of it at the library, but couldn't recall the author [Eastman, again! You wiley thing...] Thankfully, I didn't get it because Pete was amazing. Before he started, he explained he felt the narration needed an English accent. But try as he might practicing at home, his Patrick Stewart sounded more like Bowie. So he went with it.
[David Bowie, if you're following this blog, pleeeaazzzze start recording children's stories; it would be a gift to humanity!]

Bowie as narrator and the Baby Bird in shrill cockney (sounding like Terry Jones of Monty Python when he portrays a woman) had me doubled over, tears streaming down my face. At one point, I think I actually fell off my chair.

But the final week was all mine: the short story.

And in this instance, I cannot claim much of the credit. Sure, I could have picked Alice Munro, but I went for the ultimate cheat: David Sedaris.

Louise and my fellow classmates were shocked and in awe of what they presumed were my skills as a voiceover artist. But no, it was Sedaris. How convenient that such a genius should write in my voice! Because despite the fact that I am not a middle-aged gay man -- nor am I remotely as witty, skilled, observant, incisive, or generally as brilliant -- my voice (in terms of writing) sounds like his.
At least to my ear (isn't that yet another quality of greatness in a writer?).

No, friends: I am not David Sedaris. But man, can I read his shit aloud to an audience!
[Further examples include an impromptu performance for my parents at the Moncton airport and a couple editions of Barkly Bedtime Stories with my housemates.]

***

The idea of "cheats" in the attainment of success.
Some times their use is intentional, like the selection of Sedaris for the voiceover finale. A couple years ago, I choreographed a large group piece, Wake, on the DancEast Young Company. I can confidently say it's one of the best things I've created to date. However, in terms of eliciting an emotional response from the audience, the use of two tracks by Sigur Ros for the last part of the piece was a knowing cheat.

Other times, the cheats can't be helped: I couldn't shake the feeling that the perfect scores I achieved on the map tests in my university history course were undeserved due to the advantage gifted to me by my photographic memory. Same with the 100% I finished my anatomy course with the following year: it wasn't me, it was my freakish memory.

In all cases where cheats have been used, praise feels almost dirty.

***

I clearly remember one particular music class in elementary school, grade 4 or 5. Mrs. Kay Doucette said she would buy a Popsicle for whoever could correctly name the song represented by the music notes on the the board.

I knew right away: Frère Jacques. After all, I had been studying piano with the nuns for a few years and by this point was also taking lessons in sight reading, dictation, and Solfège. I waited, hoping someone else would figure it out, but knowing it was unlikely: we had barely touched on reading music in our weekly hour-long class.
I looked over at Jonathan Doucette. Surely, the music teacher's son would know this!
"Anyone...?"
I put up my hand and answered.

As we walked through the gym back to our classroom on the other side of the school, I thanked Mrs. Doucette, but said I couldn't accept the prize: it wasn't fair.
"Of course it's fair. I said I'd buy a Popsicle for whoever could tell me the song and you did."
"But none of the other kids take music outside of school!"
"Aleza," she said in a tone that meant the argument was closed for debate, "don't look a gift horse in the mouth."

Even at the time, I recall thinking that was a weird expression to say to a kid.

***

Recently, Tisi and I choreographed a duet on stairs to Alice by Pogo. The track is so cool and entrancing, I secretly felt it's a bit of a cheat. However, we neglected to bring the CD when we went to show the people putting the performance together. After explaining the oversight, we did the piece in silence. And they loved it.
I stopped myself short of saying how much more they'll like it with the music.
No. It is a good piece, all on it's own.

Maybe after all these years, it's time to accept the damn Popscicle already.