Music moves, motivates military member at the Rock

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Regina Agoha
  • 19th Airlift Wing Public Affairs
LITTLE ROCK AIR FORCE BASE, Ark. --  Waiting for her name to be called, she is nervous. Knowing she has a job to do she swallows that huge lump in her throat, approaches the stage and begins with five very familiar words.

"Oh say can you see." As she sings, she is focused and very still, careful to not let her nerves get to her. She looks straight in front of her and takes her time to sing each word correct and clear. And with a graceful finish, "and the home of the brave," she delicately places the microphone back on the stand and leaves the stage. Once the song is over, it is obvious that the nervousness has left her. Her face has flushed the fear and replaced it with a smile.

"I've always been drawn to music," said Tech. Sgt. Jill Curbo, the noncommissioned officer in charge of First Term Airman Center. "It just seems like music uplifts my spirit. If the music is on, I'm singing it. I can be down and I'm still going to sing. I can be happy and I'm going to sing. It doesn't matter."

Curbo sings for numerous events on and off Little Rock Air Force Base. She uses her talent to uplift those in mourning at funerals, to help celebrate at joyful events or just to entertain her children in her home.

"I think what I like most about singing is the meaning it has for me. Nobody knows when I'm singing what that song means to me, and nobody can take that away. I can sing one song and someone listening could have a different feeling listening to it than I have singing it. It could take them one place, and it could take me to a different place in my life. It's kind of like a secret that I have with myself. It's mine, it's all mine and nobody knows," she laughed. "I know it's kind of weird but that's just the way I look at it. No one can ever take the meaning away from it."

Curbo said she has fun with singing, wherever she's doing it.

"I sing at church, weddings, funerals, military functions and in the car, (I always act like I'm trying out for American Idol in my car... if you ever pass by me in the car and you see my head bopping, that's what I'm doing)," she said, swaying her head from left to right as to demonstrate how she bops. "I sing in the shower at home by myself and with my children. I love to sing to my children while I give them a bath. When they were babies and even now, I could take a bathing routine, like bathing my daughter, and make a song out of it. We'll sing and dance and laugh, but those were some of the best songs, and we still sing them to this day," she said giggling.

Though Curbo, the Arkansas native, has been singing ever since fifth grade, she still says she gets very nervous before she sings.

"I get nervous every time," she said. "I don't care who you are or what the event is. I get nervous every time. It could be a change of command or a wedding. It doesn't matter. The only time I'm not nervous is if I'm at home with my children or in the car. When it comes to being in front of an audience, I get nervous every time. I'm nervous when I start until about midway through, and then I begin to calm down."

Curbo said she can't put a number on how many times she has sung for military functions. She recalls singing the National Anthem for the first time when she graduated from tech school, and that it was still very nerve racking then. At her first duty station, Keesler Air Force Base, she sang many times and continued when she returned home to be stationed here.

She said she likes signing the national anthem, but it's a very complicated song. "If you start off on the wrong pitch, hitting the right notes in the middle of the song can be difficult. Depending on how you start, dictates the rest of the song. So, depending on how nervous or scared I am, singing that song can be very hard."

Contrary to what most people think, Curbo says that it's actually the middle part of the song, "And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air," that's the hardest to sing. Harder than that famous note that's hit with the words, "O'er the land of the free."

To make sure that she does her absolute best each times she sings, Curbo said she practices a couple times before the event, the day before, in the car on the way there, and few times before she gets up to sing. And even though she does much preparation, she said she feels that sometimes she can do better.

"We are our worst critics," she said. "Some of the times when I think I sang a song badly, people will come up and say I did a great job."

One piece of advice Curbo said she gives people is to never give up on what you love to do, no matter what the naysayers say.

"I have had people in the past before who have straight up told me that I can't sing," she said. "And I say that's ok because they are entitled to their opinion. I never let that deter me from what I love. I'm going to sing. You're going to have critics. If it's something that you love, brush off the negativity; don't let it keep you from doing what you love and keep on singing or doing what it is you love to do."

Curbo said she can't imagine her life without music and singing.

"Singing has taken me from some of the lowest points of my life. If I can just sing, my spirits are lifted. I will sing as long as I can. It doesn't have to be the National Anthem. As long as I'm able to speak, there's no doubt in my mind that music will be an integral part of my life and my being."