While singing at my favorite bar last saturday I was approached by an older trans woman who was visiting for the weekend, and who is an entertainer. She was rocking out to AC/DC songs throughout the night, absolutely carefree, lyrics and melodies be damned, and I cheered after every single one, naturally. Genuinely, she was quite entertaining and had a modus operandi distincitly opposite from mine that we both noticed, and that had prompted her to come up to me.
paraphrased: "You have a wonderful voice that I would kill to have, but you're missing a crucial element of performance. I know you're a perfectionist, but unglue your eyes from the lyrics, look around the room, sing to people and not the microphone, don't imitate a statue. I put on a show even though I don't sound as good as you, and if you picked up what I do you'd have headhunters signing you to bands. What you're doing is entertaining, so be an entertainer."This stunlocked me for a second, the word "perfectionist" pierced through my mind as nothing could be more true. I felt seen through and I was locked in curiosity to what she had to say after that word was spoken to me. I sing songs only in my range, only that I know more or less by heart, and I often listen over songs before performing them to make sure I don't embarrass myself. I'm very narrow minded in my performances despite my knowledge that being genuine beats being authentic to the material. I could blame a lot of the latter behavior on my upbringing with classical music as my main mode of performing, but I still understood and accepted that genuineness was the key to entertaining in non clinical environments, and I simply prioritized it away in my mind up until the talk she gave me. I did one more song afterwards, taking her advice, being myself and taking in the crowd, singing with my friends, and not only did she beam at my changed attitude but I enjoyed it more than any I had done before. I felt fulfilled and didn't nitpick the two and a half minutes in my head afterwards. I noticed others in the bar singing along, seemingly to and for themselves, the expression on their face deeply reflecting the impact of the lyrics to them. Scarlets advice was something I knew but dismissed and I could not be any more thankful towards her for reminding me of the fact that performing is just as much for the people watching as it is for yourself.