#IndependentWoman

Recently I was facing certain questions about myself and you know, you'd think that by the time you turn 33 years-old you already have your personality completely figured out. And I think I know pretty much who I am and I am proud of the woman I've become. I am grateful for everything I had in my life, and I am satisfied with my career as it is.

I get asked many times if I wouldn't want to have more work in the music and then I think about the 3 ensembles I manage, the 2 choirs I am conducting and another ensemble I am coaching, the churches I am doing musical duties at, and there's this foundation (Stichting Zin in Zingen) I am working with, and the projects I am doing as a guest singer occasionally and so on, and there's teaching and then I am like: Work even more? Isn't this just enough? Yeah, of course, it would be great to become rich and doing that CD recording I've been being asked in the summer whether I have one or not, but next to a part-time job and the diverse musical activities I have and my own vocal- and personal development I have hardly time for posting new entries on this blog, not to mention the fact that when I mention to my Friday date all the things I listed above just now, I get two different reactions. The first reaction is that they ask me if I'd have any room at all for a relationship being so busy, and they already assuming I don't, without me actually giving an answer to this question. The second reaction is that they don't ask this question, just assume that I'd probably don't have time for a relationship so I'd obviously wouldn't mind being treated as a hook-up material or just simply back off - what flattering options to have, isn't it? Anyway, I get assumptions and they make decisions for me without even being asked whether I'm fine with their conclusion or not (let me tell you, no woman would be satisfied or happy with a man making decisions for them - I know, this might be shocking for many! - insert sarcastic joke here). Well, for these gentlemen, whose head are full of their assumptions about me and my intentions, I have no room, no emotional energy and definately no time at all (unless they come out of their head and stop reading between my lines 😉)
So work more? I don't know, maybe. But surely not wasting time for delusional men.

The best was when I was accused of not being a feminist. Well, this made me think a little. I have always considered myself as an "equalist" when it comes to gender rights and gender gap. When I say "equalist", I mean I believe that men and women deserve to be treated as equal, since both of them belong to the human race. There shouldn't be any discrimination based on biological differences. I don't like to call myself a feminist, because then I would be considered as a feminazi as well, who hate men, and as a matter of fact I don't hate men. I love them! I love everything about them! They make great friends and some of them can be excellent lovers (I guess) and very few of them could make exceptionally good partners (the kind I am looking for, actually). In the old fashioned way, I am a true feminist, I act like one. I take pride in the fact that I pay for my monthly expenses, my rent, food on my own, and really I am the Independent Woman from the Destiny's Child song. I am super excited about the 8-week long boxing training I'm about to begin in the end of this month. I am proud of the fact that I can make it on my own without the financial support of some boyfriend or husband or anyone, actually. It's not that I wouldn't need or wouldn't want to have a relationship...

Or well, you know what?

I don't want a relationship. I want partnership. I am an equalist. I want someone with whom we treat eachother like equals. If I don't have that, I prefer to be single, because I am happy the way I am and I don't need a relationship to justify my existence or to give me the flattering status of someone's girlfriend or wife. Again, I'm not against of becoming someone's girlfriend or wife, but not in a relationship that's only relative, I want to be equal with my man. I want to build a castle with him - figuratively. Accepting eachother as we are with all our scars and flaws, laugh together, inspire, forgive and understand eachother. That's what I want...


But well, back to the singing part and music and work and such.
People usually ask me if I've ever thought about singing in a professional choir. And really, I did. I gave it a thought and decided not to do it, not only because I am terrible with auditions. I don't even hold auditions with Bartók Rózsái Együttes for the vacant places, because I don't believe in the efficiency of an audition to filter out candidates for a possible long-term cooperation.
I knew it quite soon back at the Conservatory that I don't want to do the same things fellow-singers did: going to auditions, sometimes just for the sake of doing it and not particularly to get the gig - seriously, I will never understand this madness. Once I asked a friend what is it like to go to these auditions and she told me it's like doing a singing exam at school. I was like: Eh? What's the point of that?? I think it's really rude from the professional world to keep freshly graduated singers in the student state this way. I hated singing exams! There's no way in hell I'd want to go back there! No wonder I've always been bad at auditions...
Don't get me wrong, if you like them, knock yourself out, but I'm not joining this vicious circle of sending me back to exam situations. By the way, this might be also the infected wound which the classical music world actually suffers from - but it's really just a thought.

I will never settle for something less than my goal. Not in my professional life and surely not in my private life.

So here you go:

• I am a feminist, but not a feminazi.
• I am traditional in some cases, but very radical when it comes to (social) causes I am passionate about.
• I am old fashioned, but I don't mind taking the first step.
• I love to experiment with literally anything with the right people in the right circumstances - and not only because my whole self as an early musician and performing artist revolves around experiment and new sensations all the freakin' time
• I believe and trust in God, but I'm not a religious fanatic (like those crazy people from Margaret Atwood's Gilead - a huge shout out to The Handmaid's Tale and The Testaments which is an astonishing deduction to what would happen if religious fanatics would take over in the politics)

I could go on with this list forever. Nothing in life is ever black and white.

Old habits and traditions

Today we're contemplating on old habits and traditions...

As some of you might know, next to being a singer specialized in early music I am also a choir conductor. Rather a semi-professional conductor, because I only have done a side study next to singing at the conservatory. Before I came to the Netherlands to study singing I was enrolled at the Baptista Teológiai Akadémia in Budapest (Academy of Baptist Theology) and I was a student at the church music department with the main subject choir conducting (my teacher was Gábor Oláh at that time). Before that I studied choir conducting at the Baptist Summer Course (Baptista Egyházzenei Tanfolyam) in Újpest for six or seven years, so from the age of 16 or 17 years-old I am standing in front of choirs - mostly church choirs. Also church music is the genre I feel myself at home the most. I grew up in church environments, religion and church was a part of my weekly routine (and lo! And behold! I still turned out pretty normal).

Ever since I am working with choirs and especially church choirs I come across the following sentence more and more often: "But we have always sung it this way". Whenever I hear this sentence I get a weird itch in my palms and only my respect for others stops me from bitch slapping the person who dared to state such nonsense.
First of all, as a conductor in charge I don't give a damn about previous conductors' musical interpretation and anyone expecting me to be that previous conductor is actually an expectation I will never ever fulfill. It's not that i don't care about their work, I do care and cherish their work! But they are not me and I am not them. The artistic tools, musicality and personality is not the same, so why would you stay in the past with someone who has already left for another opportunity?

Now, it's of course never about any of this expectation, but it's being used to camouflage the laziness and the fear of change.

The moment a sentence like this leaves your lips beware of the fact that your development has stopped a long ago and you don't want to grow further. In case of (church) choirs it's a sign of becoming old and an early sign of the death of the choir. Thoughts that refer to old ways and habits (whether it's a choir's or of an individual) and being comfortable with them is very dangerous.

Now, tradition might sound like a pile of old habits connected to eachother, but it's not. Tradition is a repeated activity or event that has a purpose. A purpose that's more than serving people's comfort. It makes you remember who you are, what your community has gone through, a heroic deed in respect of the hero or heroes. Or anything like this. Not all commemorations make you feel comfortable, not all of them are nice, but it's a beautiful thing to have - traditions remind you to your roots and makes you look back the road you have behind your back.
From the moment a tradition's purpose is lost or gets forgotten it becomes a habit, an empty shell, an abomination.

Old habits on the contrary have no higher purpose. If you refuse change for the fake safety old habits can offer you, at a certain point you'll loose the joy you used to feel. Kodak refused to go digital, now they are almost nowhere to be found. Blockbuster didn't take seriously the importance of online streaming and now they are gone and Netflix took over. What's the same in Kodak and Blockbuster? They refused change. They ignored the change of circumstances. They got stuck in the "We've always done it this way" and that was their doom.

Notice an old habit that has no purpose anymore? Change! Have you heard yourself recently saying that dreadful sentence "I always do it this way"? Change it! Could you take another route to your work? Take another one every once in a while on the way back home. Have you caught yourself playing or singing the same piece the same way all over again? Change the phrasing, the tempo the dynamics, anything.

Look at life and things around you like you have never seen them before! Your own experience is the greatest obstacle in your professional and personal development. Remember, it's never late to change your old habits.

I know, I quoted him many times (especially this one), but remember what Mark Twain said:
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. ”

Sail away from the safe harbour of your habits, even if they give you comfort and safety. Leave the conform-zone every once in a while. Challange yourself with new ways of doing your daily activities. The change doesn't have to be grand, do it little by little, step by step. Surprise yourself with spontaneous turns and moves, try out new things.

I would like to close today's thoughts with a Russian proverb: "The shark that doesn't swim drowns."