Will reading this blog change your life?
I doubt it-I would not claim such powers. But it COULD…..
Today’s blog is all about ambition. What is it, should we have it and where it can lead. As a teacher in a small provincial town I see many young souls who dream of making the theatre their lives. Tonight I have a young lad, seventeen years old, coming for his first singing lesson. What drives a young lad to spend thirty minutes a week being told how to stand, how to breathe and sing in order for him to make a better sound?
A dream.
We all dream. A Million Dreams. Before we sleep we dream of something good. Forgetting to live in the ‘now’, we make plans for what we yearn for. How we then go about achieving what we dream for says everything about us as people. Some people are born with an ability to blinker out all obstacles and find a ‘must-be-a-way’ attitude that sees solutions, not problems. Others fret at what might go wrong and scurry down the pathway marked ‘safe’. Some wake in the morning and hope for adventure. Others wake and hope to get back to their beds in one piece.
We are all born with genetic codes. We are what we are, when we are, how we are. But does that mean we are all we could be? Of course not. The only people who believe that are those who lack the ability to see they are wrong-and they are wrong. Yet they could be persuaded.
If I had wanted to be a jockey, I would have had problems. My physical characteristics couldn’t adapt-I’m six foot three. I DID want to be a professional cricketer. I could have become a professional cricketer, only I was no good. Why was I no good? Lack of natural talent? Lack of mental talent? Physically wrong???
If a young singer comes for a singing lesson wishing to sing opera for a living, the voice is everything. There has to be one. Sometimes the voice doesn’t show itself for a long time. Howard, my ex-pupil currently studying singing at university didn’t have anything special for a couple of years-apart from application. Some young singers have natural talent but don’t follow Howard’s path, they don’t develop the ambition to strive, and somewhere in their sub conscience they feel their voices are ‘good enough’. Yet they could do…
If you wish to sing in musical theatre, if you wish to be a professional actor, if your dream and your goal is to stand up in front of people and tell stories via the dramatic arts, there is NO BARRIER. Not all actors need to sing. Musical theatre doesn’t require an extraordinary vocal tract, nestled underneath an enormous, cavernous pharynx. It requires a voice that can serve the brain that owns it. A rock solid technique and decent talent you’re off. So to every young singer that stands in front of me and says, “I REALLY want to become a professional singer”, I say, “BE a professional singer!” There is NO block that you can’t overcome. All you need to do is make a choice.
When I was a young singer my teacher at the Guildhall told me I had no natural musical ability, no natural balance in my approach to music. I chose to develop this. Obviously I had some somewhere in my soul. As he helped develop my voice I chose to concentrate on the art-song repertoire. To succeed singing song one needs supreme musical taste and abilities. I won the Guildhall Schubert prize, and the National Schubert prize. I CHOSE to be what I was not.
All a young singer/performer with the basic resonant qualities needs is to CHOOSE to have success.
Now before you dismiss me as some snake oil salesman, selling a daft “method”, allow me to explain. People who know me tease me for my name-dropping tendencies, so excuse me while I again tell that I was in the Guildhall with some very famous actors in my year. These young men would hang around the coffee bar with us singers. What did the future James Bond, Obi-Wan Kenobi have that their fellow, less industrious students have? What made the future Shakespeare in Love star more likely to succeed than his fellow student and future McDonalds’ worker?
It wasn’t luck. Oh no no no! There is NO such thing in luck. We never get where we are because of luck. We aren’t talking about a lottery here. Not one person becomes successful in the arts via luck. We don’t even make our own luck, because there is NO luck. The person that just happens to be in the right place at the right time was there because of her or his endeavor. They deserved it as reward. They MADE it happen. Every single colleague of mine that has complained to me that they haven’t had their chances, that it isn’t fair that they are only understudying or singing small roles hasn’t had bad luck. there has been some reason every single time. Of course, as a nice chap I can’t turn around to this soprano and tell them what all of us can patently see. What a better world if I could. All that gnashing of teeth at the INJUSTICE if Dewis could just say-you’re a nightmare to work with, or you’re too good at understudying, or you never learn your music until the dress etc. So they perpetuate this myth that those who make the leap to the next level are ‘lucky’!
There is no such thing as LUCK.
Nope. These Guildhall boys succeeded because when they realised that everyone gets a shot on the stage-tall or short or fat or thin-they set about getting to know what they could offer and worked to perfect their art! I’ve had students who are short and not particularly stunningly attractive state that they wish to become sexy young actors. Isn’t gonna happen. I’ve had handsome souls hanker for character roles. Again-nope.
When I was a kid I filled a notepad full of my jottings of my juvenile artistic creed. I worked out what I wanted to be as a singer/actor. What I wanted to stand for. I haven’t dared look at this nonsense since then, but I’m pretty sure that if I did I would be happy with what I have done since, and how I did it. Technically I got a few things wrong on the way, but dramatically I know myself pretty well.
So back to the young singer, earnestly telling me they burn to succeed. I tell them every time (once we establish basic talent)-Know Thyself! Dig deep and know what YOU stand for beyond the technical. Beyond what can be taught, can be learned. Technique is purely the art of bringing out what we all have inside ALREADY, and improving. We don’t make a voice, we develop.
Work is subjective. Some of us think if we spend ten hours a day in the practice room but leave our brains at home, we deserve success. Others seem to do little actual work yet grow and succeed-their work is mental. I want my pupils to show me their devotion. So if I give a song to a person and they don’t learn it, or don’t want to write down their own artistic creed I don’t blow them off-mine certainly isn’t the only way. But if they show me nothing, other than vague dreams, then I will know. No success for them. Unless they change…
Because we can all change. We can all decide to CHOOSE to succeed. There is nothing stopping us. We make dreams and find roads leading to them NOW. We will not all become the next Brad Pitt. But we will find a place where we belong. I don’t sing often with the Royal Opera anymore. I have a young family. I stay at home more because I can’t bear to go away. But I still sing, still get paid to teach and sing and make music. I feel successful in my own, very personal and very happy way. Goals change, dreams morph etc.
But to that young singer, dreaming of success there is but one decision to make. CHOOSE to find a way. CHOOSE to make the theatre your life. There is NOTHING stopping you but yourself. So make yourself the thing that will take you to where you want to be. It’s that simple.
Thanks again for reading. And if this made sense to you please share.
Have a great week.
Mike
I doubt it-I would not claim such powers. But it COULD…..
Today’s blog is all about ambition. What is it, should we have it and where it can lead. As a teacher in a small provincial town I see many young souls who dream of making the theatre their lives. Tonight I have a young lad, seventeen years old, coming for his first singing lesson. What drives a young lad to spend thirty minutes a week being told how to stand, how to breathe and sing in order for him to make a better sound?
A dream.
We all dream. A Million Dreams. Before we sleep we dream of something good. Forgetting to live in the ‘now’, we make plans for what we yearn for. How we then go about achieving what we dream for says everything about us as people. Some people are born with an ability to blinker out all obstacles and find a ‘must-be-a-way’ attitude that sees solutions, not problems. Others fret at what might go wrong and scurry down the pathway marked ‘safe’. Some wake in the morning and hope for adventure. Others wake and hope to get back to their beds in one piece.
We are all born with genetic codes. We are what we are, when we are, how we are. But does that mean we are all we could be? Of course not. The only people who believe that are those who lack the ability to see they are wrong-and they are wrong. Yet they could be persuaded.
If I had wanted to be a jockey, I would have had problems. My physical characteristics couldn’t adapt-I’m six foot three. I DID want to be a professional cricketer. I could have become a professional cricketer, only I was no good. Why was I no good? Lack of natural talent? Lack of mental talent? Physically wrong???
If a young singer comes for a singing lesson wishing to sing opera for a living, the voice is everything. There has to be one. Sometimes the voice doesn’t show itself for a long time. Howard, my ex-pupil currently studying singing at university didn’t have anything special for a couple of years-apart from application. Some young singers have natural talent but don’t follow Howard’s path, they don’t develop the ambition to strive, and somewhere in their sub conscience they feel their voices are ‘good enough’. Yet they could do…
If you wish to sing in musical theatre, if you wish to be a professional actor, if your dream and your goal is to stand up in front of people and tell stories via the dramatic arts, there is NO BARRIER. Not all actors need to sing. Musical theatre doesn’t require an extraordinary vocal tract, nestled underneath an enormous, cavernous pharynx. It requires a voice that can serve the brain that owns it. A rock solid technique and decent talent you’re off. So to every young singer that stands in front of me and says, “I REALLY want to become a professional singer”, I say, “BE a professional singer!” There is NO block that you can’t overcome. All you need to do is make a choice.
When I was a young singer my teacher at the Guildhall told me I had no natural musical ability, no natural balance in my approach to music. I chose to develop this. Obviously I had some somewhere in my soul. As he helped develop my voice I chose to concentrate on the art-song repertoire. To succeed singing song one needs supreme musical taste and abilities. I won the Guildhall Schubert prize, and the National Schubert prize. I CHOSE to be what I was not.
All a young singer/performer with the basic resonant qualities needs is to CHOOSE to have success.
Now before you dismiss me as some snake oil salesman, selling a daft “method”, allow me to explain. People who know me tease me for my name-dropping tendencies, so excuse me while I again tell that I was in the Guildhall with some very famous actors in my year. These young men would hang around the coffee bar with us singers. What did the future James Bond, Obi-Wan Kenobi have that their fellow, less industrious students have? What made the future Shakespeare in Love star more likely to succeed than his fellow student and future McDonalds’ worker?
It wasn’t luck. Oh no no no! There is NO such thing in luck. We never get where we are because of luck. We aren’t talking about a lottery here. Not one person becomes successful in the arts via luck. We don’t even make our own luck, because there is NO luck. The person that just happens to be in the right place at the right time was there because of her or his endeavor. They deserved it as reward. They MADE it happen. Every single colleague of mine that has complained to me that they haven’t had their chances, that it isn’t fair that they are only understudying or singing small roles hasn’t had bad luck. there has been some reason every single time. Of course, as a nice chap I can’t turn around to this soprano and tell them what all of us can patently see. What a better world if I could. All that gnashing of teeth at the INJUSTICE if Dewis could just say-you’re a nightmare to work with, or you’re too good at understudying, or you never learn your music until the dress etc. So they perpetuate this myth that those who make the leap to the next level are ‘lucky’!
There is no such thing as LUCK.
Nope. These Guildhall boys succeeded because when they realised that everyone gets a shot on the stage-tall or short or fat or thin-they set about getting to know what they could offer and worked to perfect their art! I’ve had students who are short and not particularly stunningly attractive state that they wish to become sexy young actors. Isn’t gonna happen. I’ve had handsome souls hanker for character roles. Again-nope.
When I was a kid I filled a notepad full of my jottings of my juvenile artistic creed. I worked out what I wanted to be as a singer/actor. What I wanted to stand for. I haven’t dared look at this nonsense since then, but I’m pretty sure that if I did I would be happy with what I have done since, and how I did it. Technically I got a few things wrong on the way, but dramatically I know myself pretty well.
So back to the young singer, earnestly telling me they burn to succeed. I tell them every time (once we establish basic talent)-Know Thyself! Dig deep and know what YOU stand for beyond the technical. Beyond what can be taught, can be learned. Technique is purely the art of bringing out what we all have inside ALREADY, and improving. We don’t make a voice, we develop.
Work is subjective. Some of us think if we spend ten hours a day in the practice room but leave our brains at home, we deserve success. Others seem to do little actual work yet grow and succeed-their work is mental. I want my pupils to show me their devotion. So if I give a song to a person and they don’t learn it, or don’t want to write down their own artistic creed I don’t blow them off-mine certainly isn’t the only way. But if they show me nothing, other than vague dreams, then I will know. No success for them. Unless they change…
Because we can all change. We can all decide to CHOOSE to succeed. There is nothing stopping us. We make dreams and find roads leading to them NOW. We will not all become the next Brad Pitt. But we will find a place where we belong. I don’t sing often with the Royal Opera anymore. I have a young family. I stay at home more because I can’t bear to go away. But I still sing, still get paid to teach and sing and make music. I feel successful in my own, very personal and very happy way. Goals change, dreams morph etc.
But to that young singer, dreaming of success there is but one decision to make. CHOOSE to find a way. CHOOSE to make the theatre your life. There is NOTHING stopping you but yourself. So make yourself the thing that will take you to where you want to be. It’s that simple.
Thanks again for reading. And if this made sense to you please share.
Have a great week.
Mike