When my best friend out of the blue asked me why did I liked about singing, my natural answer was: “Because I love it and because is fun”. Then I started reflecting on my own answer. I found myself feeling guilty for having given such a superficial and simple answer. I should have said something like “Because my ability to sing is a gift from the universe that I should not waste”, “because I am really skilled and above all a great natural singer”, yet, I came up with what I tough was the mot idiotic answer. I felt dumb and resented myself for saying “because is fun”.

We grow up and we stop playing, learn to renounce the fun and embrace responsibilities, bills and to-do lists. As adults, we do many things we don’t enjoy doing and we learn to tell ourselves that this is all necessary for our own good. We do things we dislike as a way to martyrize ourselves and then pray that heaven, the universe or whomever that is looking at our grand sacrifice will reward us for our suffering. Quite often that reward never comes and we are left empty-handed, with the bitterness left by wasted time and with a feeling that we have betrayed ourselves.

Did that happened between music, my love for singing and me?

However, musicians “play” music! They don’t “work”. We play music and we should feel privileged that at least while we are playing we are allowed to feel like unsoiled souls, like little children who run wild and free.

My silly answer was a gift that kept on giving many more answers and insights. I am the best Andre Veloz I can be when I am performing. There is no fear, no insecurities, is all love for the audience, for my fellow musicians, tons of gratitude, huge self-awareness, creativity and full engagement with the moment I am living. When I am playing with my instrument, my voice, I only feel the here and the now and I feel as happy as I can be.

Perhaps my answer I like singing “Because I love it and because is fun” was dictated directly by my often muffled and often ignored inner child.  And it did come out with the voice of a child: not a sophisticated, not a particularly clever answer but at least it was honest response.

Indeed, playing music, singing and allowing ourselves to be creative should be fun and whatever we play, we should do it passion!