Stupid daylight savings....
I really wanted to go to church today. I needed to refocus myself on the important things in life.
I had a really demoralizing day yesterday. I've been very tense lately because there's a been a lot of stress in my life this month, and tension is not especially conducive to singing. It causes the breathing muscles to lock and inhibits proper breath support, negatively impacting singing on many important levels. So, my performance in yesterday's voice competition was far from my best work, and I was singing for people who have worked with great opera legends. Still, I wasn't prepared to hear, "based on your education, I expected to be impressed, but I was very disappointed," or "you can't expect a university to hire you as a voice teacher if you can't demonstrate to them that you can sing." This judge gave me comments for about 15 minutes, most of which were enlightening and useful, but no one has ever been so brutally critical of my singing before now, and it stung. This experience stands in stark contrast to my experience of four months ago when I accepted the thunderous applause of a standing international audience in Rome. It finally occurred to me very late last night to wonder why I am ready to accept this judge's opinion (albeit, professional opinion) as fact and ignore every positive comment I've received in the last 15 years.
I had a really demoralizing day yesterday. I've been very tense lately because there's a been a lot of stress in my life this month, and tension is not especially conducive to singing. It causes the breathing muscles to lock and inhibits proper breath support, negatively impacting singing on many important levels. So, my performance in yesterday's voice competition was far from my best work, and I was singing for people who have worked with great opera legends. Still, I wasn't prepared to hear, "based on your education, I expected to be impressed, but I was very disappointed," or "you can't expect a university to hire you as a voice teacher if you can't demonstrate to them that you can sing." This judge gave me comments for about 15 minutes, most of which were enlightening and useful, but no one has ever been so brutally critical of my singing before now, and it stung. This experience stands in stark contrast to my experience of four months ago when I accepted the thunderous applause of a standing international audience in Rome. It finally occurred to me very late last night to wonder why I am ready to accept this judge's opinion (albeit, professional opinion) as fact and ignore every positive comment I've received in the last 15 years.
posted by DenverSop @ 11:38 AM
2 Comments:
At 3/13/2007 2:33 PM,
Mellifluous said…
We missed you on Sunday! Sorry it was such a bad Saturday. Our whole week was kind of like that, so I know how that can feel. Hang in there!
At 3/19/2007 11:01 PM,
Ward said…
The judge was being a jerk. You didn't have a good day. It happens sometimes. That doesn't mean you can't demonstrate you can sing. That comment was not constructive and a real professional would not have said it. Sure the judge might be a professional musician, but such a comment demonstrates a LACK of professionalism. Howard Klug used to say stuff like that to his students. I told my old teacher Achille Rossi what Howard said to me after an audition. Similar unconstructive rhetoric to what you describe. Achille Rossi, president of the musician's union, king of professionalism, outstanding communicator, dimplomat extraorinare said, "He's a SCHMUCK!" Hit the nail on the head.
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