Towards the end of each year, I find myself thinking about how I want to improve or refocus my life for the New Year. Yes, I recognize that the timing is purely arbitrary: you don’t have to wait for a new year to make a decision to change. And not everyone’s…

When I was a young girl, still in the single digits of life, I dreamed of walking onto the stage alone to sing for an audience. In my imagination, I grudgingly allowed for there also to be a pianist onstage with me. As a very shy person whose musical vision…

One of the first gifts that I gave to my new lover, John, some years ago was a song called, “The Nearness of You.” I had recorded myself singing the romantic song very informally on my iPhone. I sent it to him for his birthday after we had been seeing…

To shed some light on this question, let me offer the story of my good friend, Claire Duchesneau, a hearing-impaired singer. When she was a young woman, Claire was able to hear normally. She played the guitar. She wrote and sang songs…