470: Sustainable Activities: I'm learning singing (my mortifying "before" recording)

The average American watches 5 hours of TV per day. Many fly or drive around for fun. If we want to pollute less, will we lose the ability to enjoy ourselves?

I've written before how Vincent Stanley's commitment to turn off his computer Friday mornings and Nicola Pirulli's walking me through The Spodek Method led to me turning off all my electronics and practicing singing daily. Since starting, I've missed a couple days, but have loved the results.

Until recently I only sang songs, nothing attempting to learn, just to enjoy. Now I'm moving to voice exercises. I resisted doing them partly because I need to use my computer to play the recordings so decided to relax that constraint the days I practice my exercises. I expect that doing them enough will improve my singing. For now, here is the "before" version of my practicing beginner voice exercises.

When I listened after, I was mortified at my inexperienced voice. I have a long way to go. But I expect that practice will make perfect, or better, and it will be hard to imagine I sounded like this.

It begins with a story I think you'll like. Listen the exercises at your own risk, but I recommend turning off your power and seeing what you find to replace screens and burning fossil fuels. You'll be bored, maybe mortified, but it's not what you give up. It's what you replace it with.

• The recording I got the exercises from

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