My daughter has started singing with vibrato. She’s four. So, it’s not a quick and snappy “Mary had a little lamb,” it’s slow and pensive: “Ma-a-ary ha-a-a-ad uh-uh-uh li-i-i-it-uh-uh-uhl la-a-a-amb”

It’s pre-schooler sings the blues.

I’m not sure where she picked this up, but I will say it seemed to start after a two-week visit from her Grammy, who, if I may be so bold, utilizes a wee bit of the vibrato herself.

But, then again, maybe she picked it up from me. While I try to stay away from excesses of vocal warble, perhaps my voice occasionally makes those dips and dives, too.

I’ll admit that sometimes in the dark when I sit on the floor of my kids’ bedroom and sing up to them in their lofts, I let my voice take off. I belt out the lyrics to their (my) favorite song, Bob Dylan’s “Tangled Up In Blue.”

In some parts, I sing fast and raspy, going somewhere edgy and rebellious. In other parts, I let my voice go slow and bluesy, somewhere unchecked and from the heart. And, so far, since they don’t ask what it means to work in a “topless bar” or why you’d light “a burner on the stove to offer me a pipe,” sometimes I let myself feel the poetry and music so deeply I could cry.

So when I hear, “You are my sunshine” coming from my daughter’s mouth like she’s channeling Ethel Merman, I admire the risks she’s taking with her sounds -- and, maybe, even her feelings.

I try to catch her eye with a nod and a smile as if to say to my girl, “That’s right -- sing it, sister.”

By Anjie Reynolds

Labels: Anjie Reynolds, bluesy, Bob Dylan, Grammy, Mary Had A Little Lamb, Pre-Schooler, Tangled Up in Blue, vibrato

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