I can’t believe the whole month of September has passed. Where do the weeks go? I have been so busy, and I feel bad that my last post had to be such a sorry one. Life has picked up to a very fast clip and I find myself going to bed every night wondering how I’m going to get everything done. I’m singing for a masterclass on Thursday (with an American composer, Lori Laitman), I have two essays due, and midterms to study for over the next two weeks. My recital is in three weeks, then three weeks after that is the opera production and my music history comprehensive exams for my Masters degree. Whew! I’ll be fine, but I definitely have to stay on task.
 
The last two weeks have been filled with mixed activities, dinner to celebrate Mary Price’s birthday, babysitting three kids for two days, hosting book club, soccer games, ward missionary meetings (Tom), NEC presentation (Tom), rehearsals, teaching, young artist applications, visiting and home teaching, and lots of schoolwork. It’s good to stay busy, but I think I’m too busy. My life is a little out of wack and I have felt it a bit emotionally. I tend to be more emotional when my life isn’t balanced.  However, after a wonderful Friday made up of performing at a retirement community and stopping by the waterfalls at Chagrin Falls so my friend and accompanist Eri could see them, I feel refreshed and ready for a wonderful weekend.

My mind has been racing with questions the last week. So many that I have thrown myself into somewhat of an obsessive interrogative process. I don’t know why I feel such a need for answers. I just love control. I think one of the main purposes of my coming to CIM was to learn: one humility, and two that life happens and most things are out of our control. I know I am happier when I just enjoy life and don’t try to run it so much, but I still have this innate desire to dictate what happens to me. However, its unhealthy and rarely yields good results- at least when it comes to try to control things that are by nature, out of my control.

I have no sway in whether I am cast in any role, ever. I can practice for hours upon hours a day, I can know my music as perfectly as I can, but still my body may not do what my brain knows it must, and then even if it does the adjudication panel might just want someone with a bigger voice, a brighter voice, a darker voice, someone shorter, someone older, or maybe they were hungry and thinking about what they wanted for dinner while I was singing- who knows!!

I have this epiphany while I was singing yesterday. It was a small group of elderly. I sang my Schubert set for my recital, all beautiful songs. I sang expressively and was wrapped up in my own bubble of performance. I didn’t look at them, because I was “in character.” I introduced the pieces before each piece and I smiled and they smiled. Then I sang the two English pieces I’m doing for the masterclass, these are poems meant to be sung to someone, so I sang to them. My entire feeling changed. Suddenly the music was no longer about me, it was about them, and I loved it. When I was in High School I often sang to my audience, treating each one like to person the piece was delivered to. I scoffed when people would say “you shouldn’t look at your audience when you sing.” I thought, “That is how you connect, that is how you communicate.” This past year I have become so wrapped up in my technique that I am always so focused on doing all these tiny little adjustments within my body and I don’t just sing anymore. It reminds me of what Barbra Streisand said when someone asked her if she was professionally trained, she said something like, “As soon as my teacher tried to tell me he wanted to change my ee vowel, I said, forget this!”

I think about this a lot as a teacher. Most of my students don’t want to pursue a career in singing. I try hard to give them the skills and technique to increase their vocal capabilities without altering their natural sound too much.

Anyway, I’m sorry so many of these post have been about singer things. Part of the imbalance in my life is that I am doing too much music and not enough other things. I need more time to garden, to talk to my family, to serve, and to communicate be it through music or word. However that isn’t really how the system is set up for Grad school. I guess if I’m going to master something, I need to focus for one more year!