Singing For The School
Benson singing the national anthem.
The Friday before Homecoming week, I sang the national anthem at the high school assembly to kick off homecoming week.
Singing anything in front of anyone can be quite scary. I have performed for lots of people, but no audience is more terrifying than your peers. An audience full of strangers, you can assume you’ll never see them again. But when the audience is full of your school, you’ll see them every day.
To add to the stress of performing in front of the school, the national anthem is challenging to perform, even more so when it’s acapella. The anthem covers an octave and a half, and without backing tracks, it makes it hard to stay on pitch.
Even though I practiced a lot, I was still nervous. As soon as I started singing, my nerves just got worse. There was a significant delay from singing into the mic and hearing it back over the speakers.
This delay made singing so much more complicated, and every time I tried to move on to the next note, I would still hear myself singing the old notes. I had to try to focus and just sing through the song and not listen to myself.
The song dragged on longer than I wanted because of the delay in the feedback. Even though it didn’t go how I wanted, I’m still grateful for the opportunity and hope I get more opportunities like it in the future.
