In paradisum...

Today I sang at a funeral service. This was the first funeral I had to sing since the COVID-19 outbreak. As a singer this is what I can count on for a few months, I think: funerals, Requiem, In paradisum... Somehow I was hoping for studying Ave Maria by Franz Schubert for a weddig of a friend or something, but not for a funeral.

Now I am grateful for choosing for becoming a hybrid, so the virus-crisis didn't take away all my income. Becoming independent from the music industry proves itself (again and again) as the best decision I've ever made. Having a part-time flexible job in the healthcare sector is not only rewarding and giving financial certainity, but indirectly it is making me a better singer, a better performer. I feel I have better contact with my audience and more social sensitivity when it comes to compiling programmes.

While as a singer my routine has drastically changed, at the same time as a help at home for elderly and sick people in the healthcare sector my daily routine hasn't changed much, so my life is more or less the same as before the announced self-quarantine and "work from home" policies. I cannot work from home, sorry - and not sorry. I would like to help wherever I can as long as I am on my feet and breathing. The buses, public places are deserted, sometimes I have an entire bus for my own. I'm adjusting my tasks at my clients and I wash my hands as often as I can - I work with strict hygenic rules anyway and I am careful, but now I'm taking this to another level, so I can keep on helping as long as I can.

And I sing for them. You heard me right, I sing for them - with vacuum-cleaner accompaniment. I do this all the time, but now I try to sing the songs that make me happy and calm, but also my clients - some Purcell here, some Monteverdi there... Or just try to find more and more ways to ornament the melody of Amazing grace. 
Above all I do my best to keep my calm, to remain strong and solid like a rock. That's what govenrments and the media and so many people do wrong nowadays: instead of raising awareness they are generating panic and talking about an invisible enemy. There's no enemy here, nor it is invisible. Your invisible enemy is you in your own head, your fears and demons. It is impossible to do groceries these days and follow the guidelines at the same time. Everybody is buying toilet paper, flour, hand soap, etc., but they don't buy probiotics, immune-boosters, veggies, etc.

Weird times, very weird times...

Stay at home! - they say. And you know what? It's not a bad thing to stay at home for a change. Pandemic or not, staying at home is a great thing! You can get around to read the books you always wanted to read, be productive in your own time, do stuff around the house that always should have been done. Worried about not being able to socialize? We're living in the digital era, almost everyone has a tablet or a smartphone with cameras, and an internet connection - make appointments with eachother for video calls! I know, it's not the same as getting together in the same room, but you know what? This weekend I'm going to teach a friend to cook real Hungarian "gulyás soup", and we'll cook together! Yesterday I gave a really nice singing lesson to one of my pupils, and today (after the funeral and after eating lunch) I was working on Hungarian pronounciation with my Estonian friend, Liis, who sings in Bartók Rózsái Énekegyüttes - and all these online! You can get a lot done! The world slowed down, you just have to enjoy that you can finally comprehend life as it is in real time. As for me, I experience this slow pace daily life as a blessing.
Imagine, you have an old unsolved argument with someone: now is the time to contact them and begin to figure things out, how you two could forgive eachother for good this time. Now you have the distance, you have the time to have a decent and adult conversation with eachother
It can be hellish, but you can create your paradise too, so why would you make yourself miserable and complain about not being able to go out(side)? By the way, you can still take a walk in the nature and if you have a balcony you can still sit there - that's still allowed. You can also choose to make life a living hell for the endangered group of people, by not following the guidelines, or you can plant the seed of paradise for others by following them.

And then my thoughts go back to the Requiem mass I was singing today at the funeral, and that last antiphone seems suddenly hopeful and promising a brighter future. I really do hope that withdrawing ourselves from social gatherings and being pushed to spend some time alone will teach us to appreciate and respect eachother more. That's the kind of future I imagined for myself on this Saturday afternoon, and that's the paradise I'm longing for, but until then...

In paradisum...

Listen! (Part 2)

It was quite a long time ago since I've posted an update to my blog, but since I've finally had time to give a new look to my website, I thought it is about time to share some thoughts on my blog as well.

As I have already mentioned in my previous post I would like to drive your attention to the ears and on the fact how important it is to listen, especially when you are a singer. If you need a quick recap, you can find the previous entry here.

It is almost obvious that in order to have decent communication with eachother in any circumstances, we need to listen to eachother very carefully. Listening with care requires more concentration in the beginning, but you can train yourself to be more precise when it comes to listen to someone else. When it comes to music and especially intonation problems, you can easily solve your intonation problems by giving more attention to the note that you're singing and listening. At conservatories and music schools, students (mostly singers) get the critique that their intonation may not be perfect. Now, it is important to know that as a singer you have mainly three possible reasons to get this comment:

1. You push instead of using the natural support
2. You don't listen carefully enough
3. Both of them from above at the same time

One would think that a musician or a singer has perfect ears (not perfect pitch!) and we don't have any problems with listening. Actually, in most cases it's not true. Many of taking listening for granted and we don't train our ears and the brain funtion, called "listening" carefully enough, that's why careless listening results slight or big intonation problems. Here I wouldn't mention different tunings since it's not relevant yet.

Those who don't have natural affinity towards music and considered not having musical ears, are actually people who don't use their relevant brain function to listening. They listen in a superficial way. I have had singing pupils who had difficulties to sing back a note played on the piano, but could perfectly sing back the same note when I was singing it for them. It is not only the fact that it is easier to resonate together with another human being, than with a musical instrument, but it is also a proof that people not having musical ears can train themselves to a certain level to be able to do so. They probably won't reach the quality of a professional solo instrumentalist or singer, but they can become pretty good ensemble players. 

Listening is also a question of sensitivity. Artists in general are different from people whom are not involved in the arts, because they sense and experience the world around them in a different way. When musicians and singers hear a note, their brain literally translates it to a musical note and they are able to sing or hum it back, but when a non-musician hears a note, it is just a note, so he/she will hum back some note and not exactly the same. Why? For their senses it doesn't really matter what note it is, for us, musicians it does, especially when we make music together or improvise.

Unfortunately, improvisation went out of fashion in the 20th-century among classical musicians and singers (fortunately, improvistation is an essential element of jazz), but it is slowly coming back to practice. In the 19th-century it was a common thing to improvise on concerts and it belonged to any musical training. I wish someday a classical music education model would rise and spread all over the world, that includes lots of improvisation and ear-training...

Listen! (Part 1)

I would like to dedicate a few entries to the ears. Ever since I've been busy with digging myself into Lajos Szamosi's Path to Free Singing, I am more and more interested in this curious body part, the ears and especially the process of listening. As a musician and as a singer of course you listen differently and you listen more carefully than anyone else. Before I've got to know the Szamosi Approach I was convinced that there are people who have ears for music and there are those who just simply don't have any musical hearing. There is a difference, of course, but there is nothing to do with the body part itself, it has rather a lot to do with how we use our ears, and what we are used to. Moreover, the ability of listening and our ears can be trained, although you have to be aware that the thin line that seperates professionals from amateurs, in the aspect of listening(!!), is actually very much based on your sensbility, if you dare to feel. We are not the same, not in body and certainly not in personality, and each of us have our own farthest limitations, but whether someone becomes a professional musician and/or singer or not, in the end the success will always depend on one's sensibility, sensitivity and body awareness (this last one can be learned and/or natural).

There are different perspectives of listening, and I would never confuse listening with hearing. Hearing is a passive, while listening is active and supposes that the one who listens also pays attention - hearing not necessarily comes with attention paid. 

I think almost all of us know this quote from The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery (see above), but I'm pretty sure there are just the few among us who actually able to see with their hearts. Actually most of us doesn't even know or can tell how you can see with your heart. Of course, everyone has their interpretation on it, so let me give you mine.

In my opinion, listening is acceptance. It requires an open mind, an open attitude. If someone is truly listening to the other, their heart is open, just as their mind and accepting all the information (emotional, practical, theoretical, etc) that's been said. If listening is acceptance, than it also brings you to let go of the will to control the current situation, and that can be pretty scary. Most of the self-protecting stances begin with cutting the channels to truly listen and the flow of information coming to us. 

Listening is not only essential for musicians and singers, it is very important to every human being. Relationships (any kind of a relationships) are going wrong whenever people stop listening to eachother. You stop listening, because in the process somewhere you got hurt and in order to avoid more wounds and pain, you close yourself - for the sake of survival, purely by instict. And this is where your insticts can bring you to make a wrong decision and instead of releasing the tension, more tension is created. Such a pity. I'm not saying you have to accept everything you listen to. Eventually you'll make a selection (based on different factors) and you'll keep only the most useful information.

When you are seeing with your heart, you listen. You accept what you hear and you pay attention. Without listening, you can only see the surface and that surface is already within the reach of the Eyes. 

As for me, I'm not interested in the surface, I would like to see and feel the depths, the real beauty of existence. The surface will never satisfy me...

Rules of life - according to me

Since I am working on the upcoming concerts of Bartók Rózsái Énekegyüttes, and I am also busy with adjusting my life to my new job as a help at home (which I am enjoying very much, and I will talk about it later in another entry), just a short one for you. And don't worry, I am working on another, longer entry as well, but that's not ready yet and I am still not sure whether I should post that or not... Instead of posting that half-baked entry, I will talk about the rules of life, which I compiled recently and I would like to keep it as short as possible, because the more rules you have in your life, the less flexible you get. But before that, let me share with you a little pleasant surprise I've experienced yesterday night...

Yesterday night I was practising The Aspiration by Henry Purcell, a piece I have been studying for almost two years now, ever since Evelyn Tubb suggested me to learn it after I brought to her masterclass another completely unknown piece by Purcell, The morning hymn. The mentioned pieces have the same character, and they are to be found in the same collection, the Harmonia Sacra. Both of them are dealing with sacramental-religious subject and their texts have a sort of penitential after taste (the typical, I worth nothing but God still saved me, so I sing joyfully to him, and stuff like that), and their style is rather monodic, demanding the performer to forget about beautiful melodies. So, I was practising and studying this piece for a while and though I am pretty good at pieces like The Aspiration it still gave me a difficult time whenever I tried to actually sing it, but yesterday (or sometime before that) something happened and suddenly I was able to sing it with much less vocal problems, and finally I could forget about reminding myself about breathing through at certain passages where I earlier always felt my breath simply stops (probably because I was concentrating too hard). I was able to begin to work on the small details, and it was great! I mean... recently I have been practising, because I wanted to go on, but I wouldn't say it was all pleasant and nice. I went on, because I wanted to and not necessarily because I enjoyed it. Oh, how many times Heent told me to enjoy singing a bit more than I seem to! And back then I wanted  to enjoy it, but it's not... You cannot enjoy something because you want to enjoy it, but you can keep up the good work and later it will pay off - maybe... or maybe not; who knows?

But back to rules of life! I have a little list on my wall (I burnt the rest of my lists I hanged on my wall after I moved out from my former room), and it contains seven short rules. Now I will share them with you, maybe it will be useful for some of you as well...

1. The nose is meant for smelling.
(Not to bump it into other's life and business.)

2. The mouth is for eating.
(Not for spreading gossips and bad-mouth about others.)

3. The lips and the tongue are for sweet words, kissing and pleasure.
(Again: and not for spreading gossips and such... see above)

4. The hands are for grabbing your opportunities.
(Not for anything else stupid, like any violence...)

5. Only one may have access to the lagoon of mysteries.
(Yes, it is in the language of flowers, but it basically means: don't mess around too much, it won't do you any good.)

6. Self-loathing is just as unhealthy as biting your nails.
(I think, this one speaks for itself.)

7. It is better to fall in love than in despair.
(This is the refined version of an earlier wise-crack we always used with a best friend of mine, which says: it is better to fall on a guy than to fall for a guy - this wise-crack "was born" after I fell on a guy as the tram suddenly stopped.)

Spending some precious time with the audience...

I have to start by telling you, before this sentence hits bigger than it should, that it is so interesting how musicians have become elitist snobs (not everyone, but 95% of them) in the last decades. I have two conservatory diploma's, but I am sick and tired of the traditional way of performing music (nicely dressed up - preferably in black, or in a suit -; the venue doesn't really matter, any traditional musician can make a snob, elitist concert hall out of any venue). They do an excellent job, but meanwhile they are doing their best, they give a flawless performance, they forget to enjoy the whole thing (whole thing = the piece they are performing, the fact they are giving something to their audience, and all the emotions music can squeeze out of performers and listeners alike), and they also forget the fact that a flawless performance is a piece of cake for a machine as well.

Guess what? I would like to hear performing musicians make mistakes and show me they are just as much of a human beings as I am, moreover, I would like to see how they get over their mistakes. I don't care about how well you can play that piece, show me some flesh and blood, and please, please, entertain me! Make me laugh, or cry, I don't care, just make me feel alive!
Every single time I see a performer making a mistake and coming out of it, he/she becomes immediately very special to me and I will make sure I'll check out his/her performances in the future. For one single reason: for letting me see the human side of a performer. It is the madness of nowadays, that (literally) everything has to be perfect, though as far as I know only the dead are perfect, everyone else (the living) has a lot to accomplish still, right?


So... Now that this is out of our way, we can talk about spending time with your audience. I know, the paragraphs above seem nothing to do with the title of this entry, but believe me, that few paragraphs of rant will all make sense in the end.

It is funny, how we are not taught to spend time with the audience. I have met many people (singers and instrumentalists alike) who cannot say anything to the compliments and comments of their audience. We are so busy with doing our best on stage that we forget about what really matters: the people. I was also for a long-long time confused and I was at loss for words what to say when someone complimented on my performance or even shared some constructive ideas with me about it. Of course everyone comes to the final solution of saying "thank you" to these compliments and maybe a few more neutral sentences to those constructive comments. But while we are looking for this final and best solution, we really forget to spend time with our audience. Isn't listening to them after they listened to us would be at least the minimum we could do for them? Wouldn't it be the best way of figuring out how we can please their ears (and not the ears of other professional musicians)?

I used to be one of those singers who couldn't deal with her audience, and I am so happy I am not like that anymore. Also, fortunately I have been an exhibitionist person since my early childhood (showing off with my drawings, the new songs and poems I had learned, etc.), so it wasn't too difficult to reach out again to this. Now that I could (more or less) get back to this mentality, and I don't care anymore about saying something smart and artistic to my audience's words, I am able to enjoy the warm bath they are preparing for me: the compliments are the hot water, the bath oil and the bubbles, and the comments (constructive or not) are the cold water and the towel. And that's how everything stays in balance. I am happy I am finally able to enjoy their company after the concert and their happy faces make me feel satisfied - despite the mistakes I might have done.

Do you know what's good about your audience? First of all, they are cheering for you. Secondly, they forgive the mistakes you make at the concert, and they appreciate if you overcome the shock caused by this mistake. They forgive you, because you're human, just like they are. It is not bad to show your vulnerability to them - actually they love it, It is just the illusion created by music teachers that perfection and invincibility to motivate their pupils to practise enough. But if you bore them, that's something beyond recovery, I'm afraid. You can agree with me, and you can disagree, but it's true. After all, music is so much fun, so why would you keep all the fun for yourself?

Get it by your hands

"Don't beg for it, earn it! Do that and you will be rewarded."
(Eureka SeveN)

I have never been the kind of person who would be satisfied with anything that's granted. I have always found satisfaction in my achieved goals and my successfully accomplished tasks/missions when I had to really work hard for them (even if I had to perform a miracle). I would hate to be appreciated for being who I am (for my name, I mean) instead of what I do. When I told this to a dear friend of mine, he told me that it is an honorable and nice feature of one's personality, but it's also a little bit stupid. I cannot help, this is who I am, but I have to admit, I agree and disagree with him at the same time.

I agree, because it is indeed comes with more seemingly unnecessary investment (qua time, energy, money, etc.), and living on what you've already got by birth, everything that you can take for granted (thanks to your ancestors, and your name, or the position you happen to have) is much easier than to fight your way inch by inch towards your goal. But if you keep on working from the resources that you were given, you'll prevent yourself from reaching for an unimaginable success, because you cannot and you don't want to see anything else, but these resources. Of course, probably you may come up with new ideas, and manage to obtain new additional resources and connections to your current and given ones, but you'll only be able to use them until a certain limit. That's what happens also when your experience becomes a burden instead of a benefit. And anyway, who on earth like limitations in anything?

So I have to say, I firmly disagree. I am rather fond of the theory of the Greater Fool. The greater fool theory states that the price of an object is determined not by its intrinsic value, but rather by irrational beliefs and expectations of market participants. A price can be justified by a rational buyer under the belief that another party is willing to pay an even higher price. Or one may rationally have the expectation that the item can be resold to a "greater fool" later. (yes, Wikipedia is your evil friend sometimes... I wouldn't quote from Wikipedia if I wouldn't checked it carefully). The Greater Fool in my opinion is also someone who doesn't really looks for fame or the merits he may get out of anything he does. Instead of that, he leaves everything behind and leads the way through the unknown and creates new paths to follow for the ones that are coming after him. That's why he doesn't look at the price and the amount of investements he has to put into a certain project or new approach. The only thing that matters for him is that everyone who decides to follow the path he created will result something better than before. That's why he chases after his dreams (or in other words, the irrational beliefs and expectations of market participants).
The Greater Fool don't beg for success, he earns it, and get it by his hands, though sometimes he's rewarded with success.

Why is this important for a singer (or even for an instrumentalist)? Singing and working on your (vocal) development demands one to become a Greater Fool. If I would make a calculation on how much I've spent for school, singing lessons and travelling for the sake of my own education so far, I could buy a furnished house, and pay for its expenses for a few years. And on the other hand (and this is quite old argument, but still good) if I would get paid for all those hours I work on programme's, organizing concerts and projects, or just for practising, even on the minimal wage's hourly payment, I would be a millionaire. It always takes more investment in time, energy, money, etc. than it actually pays back in cash.

But just imagine: you sing a song at a concert (not even at any of those fancy concert locations, just a song after mass or anything like that), and then you see the happy faces of your audience - well, you can be sure that they will bring something nice home in their heart. Making people happy doesn't pay you in cash, and it doesn't pay off immediately, but it makes you a better person, and who knows? Maybe later on you will get an unexpectedly nice comission from someone or you'll be asked to join a project that's interesting and even pays well. NB: the other side of this coin is that you better not screw around with people, because that's also pays off, but that payment will hurt pretty bad.

Enough of complaining about you cannot do what you really would like to, and that there are no challanging projects you can join! If you really would like do something interesting, well do something interesting! Don't beg for it, earn it! Do that and you'll be rewarded.

Post-graduation shock

Oh, I already know, this entry will be just like the one with the title If I had ever knew that...
 
It is so amazing how your graduated musician friends and your teachers don't talk about the year after their graduation. To be honest, in the past year I seriously had moments when I was sure, I have gone slightly mad, or I have lost something I had during Conservatory. I missed the almost constant fizz and fuzz (but of course not the fuss), and I thought if I don't have this fizzy-fuzzy bubbly days constantly I must be doing something really wrong. Of course I've been told that I will probably need some time to get used to the idea that I have a bachelor and a master diploma, but I have never imagined they meant something like this.

And then last Thursday I went to listen to the bachelor final recital of a friend of mine, here in Tilburg. I met a few old friends as well, friends whom I haven't seen for a long-long time, and each of them asked me the same question: what are you doing here? They meant it in a way that since I am graduated, there's no school anymore for me, so they were wondering what keeps me still here. Many of the conversations were rather on the funny slide, and I explained them that I am living my life, and for that I have chosen Tilburg - for now at least. To the last person on that evening who asked me this question I confessed that I am trying to recover after that 6 years at the conservatory (however much fun it was, it was still an impulsive, intense and stressful period in my life), and honestly I wasn't really looking for opportunities to get employed according to my diploma's - to which he told me that it is normal. Appearantly, the year after the graduation is seasoned and featured with reaching the bottom (sometimes in extremes), and building up your career is not as easy as you have been told at marketing lectures. It is certainly not like sending dozens of application packages (including your CV, recordings, portfolio, etc.) to a dozens of professional ensembles and hoping they would call you back. That works in other sectors of the job market but not among musicians, and also not among singers (where you just throw a piece of rock and it hits at least 3 sopranos before it hits the ground gently, because the last soprano was really short).

The year after the graduation is the nihil that nobody likes to talk about and they would rather forget about it. And yet, I still feel blessed for this past year regardless all the struggle I have had. I would rather reach for the bottom of the bottom than to get to breaking point. I would rather have a few struggling days than to ignore the struggle and end up with a burn out. I felt guilty for not being able to do the same amount of work and pracitising hours without emotional outbursts, and I also felt guilty for not seeking the opportunity to perform whenever I can. I used to be someone who couldn't stay put for more than 5 minutes and was constantly making plans for the future. In the past months, especially since January I crawled back to my shell in shame and I was reading the books I wanted to read for a long-long time and also some more I was advised to read at that time. And now, about a 5 or 6 weeks ago I was finally able to come out from my shell and wake up from my slumber. I moved out from my old and tiny room from Doctor Nolensstraat and moved in to a more spacious house with a friend of mine (we are singing in the schola at Ringbaan West).Proving how silly a human being can be, after getting over my guilt about not wanting to show off my gifts like I did before, after moving in a more spacious house I felt guilty for being happy about having more space... Silly is that... And then the sun began to shine again, I spent a a few hours in the garden, enjoying the sunshine and I forgot about that remorse as well. My weight loss stopped and suddenly I began to gain weight again (I'm almost at the point that I am saying, Now, that's the minimum to survive, milady). Simply: I decided to enjoy life again, which I somehow mysteriously forgot to do for a few months in the near past...

So... What am I doing here? I am living my life. I spend it sometimes with music (with Scherzi Musici or planning the up-coming concerts of Bartók Rózsái, sometimes with baking brownies. I make money to be able to travel and to get singing lessons (for the sake of my development, but on the first place, because I love to sing), and to make a living. I have a church choir to conduct in Reeshof at the St. Antoniuskerk, and I am singing in the schola at Ringbaan West on every 4th Sunday of the month. It is not that glamorous (yet), but I love it - and maybe I don't need the glamour, but I need to become the sparkle. And now I remember that I have a pile of motets from Bamberg Codex to make a selection from and make a programme and get the singers and musicians together for it. I have plans again, and my plans are crawling up on the hierarchy in my life with every single goodnight sleep... Oh, how I love my curtains and my new bed!

On mainstream ad platforms

I don't like websites. Even though I have one, I still dislike them.

I don't like them, because everyone nowadays have one and I feel also obliged to have a website where I can show-off a little. Having a website is like getting and asking for attention 24/7 even if you don't need that amount of attention. Don't misunderstand me, I like to be in the middle of attention, I am an exhibitionist to the core, and I feel great on stage while performing, but the big difference between having the attention of people 24/7 and having their attention for a concert is the duration. Therefore I am obviously not aiming for being a mainstream artists in the sense of having a bunch of followers and/or stalkers who keep me entertained for the rest of my unnatural life.

I remember, when I was a little girl I loved to show my drawings to anyone around me to show-off with my drawing talent, but I hated when they wanted to watch the process as well. I haven't changed ever since: I like to share the songs I am singing and I enjoy the attention of the audience to the utmost, but when the concert is over and also the audience time is over afterwards, I enjoy to retire myself to my shell and (anti-social behaviour or not) keep myself away from people. That's also my main problem with fame, actually. You get unwanted attention and you have to keep your cool, otherwise you'll definitly loose your audience.

But back to websites... Yes, I have one and please feel free to check it out: http://www.johannafoldesi.com/

And no, I will not feel offended if you check out my website. I prefer to call it "online portfolio", or bungalow... or anything else but a website. The main reason why I hate to have one is that it wasn't my choice to get one, I was rather pushed to make one for myself, and even though I enjoy writing the contents and update it every once in a while, there's a slight loathing towards the fact that I am objectifying myself, I am making myself a product on 24/7 instead of doing that every once in a while by giving concerts. Let's nail my colours to must: an ensemble having a website or a facebook page, that's OK, I'm perfectly fine with that, because then a certain "organization" is advertising itself, and that's already condemned to objectify itself since it's not one personality but a mass of personalities.

Soooo... back to "whoring"... Please check out my website: http://www.johannafoldesi.com/

All you need is Love - the tale of Max and the Nematanthus

About 2 years ago a friend of mine gave me a new potted plant, a nematanthus (they also call it "goldfish" flowers). I've already had an African violet since 2011, so I thought another potted plant couldn't be a problem.

You have to know, that before I had the African violet (which I will call Max, from now on, because that's his name, actually), plants just didn't want to survive around me. I've bought Max the day after I broke up with my boyfriend in 2011, and back then I was thinking that if this plant is going to survive, and it even going to bloom, I'm not that hopeless as a human being after all. My mother taught me that if you would like to buy a potted flower, you should buy the one that haven't yet open its flowerbuds, so I followed the instruction. I had done some research on how to take care of an African violet, also asked my mother (she's an expert in my eyes, when it comes to potted plants) and my grandmother (she has a lots of them at home) as well, gave him the name Max, and I was waiting what will happen after the flowerbuds open, and the flowers wither. I was expecting Max to die and was hoping for his survival at the same time, but he surpassed my expectations: instead of dying, not only he survived, he blooms like crazy whenever the time comes for blooming (mostly in spring, or whenever he's in the mood). Max brought me many nice memories with his flowers and made me proud (because of his flowers and my success, and it made me think "finally! I can keep at least a potted plant alive!"). He's still standing on my table enjoying scattered light, and next to Max there is the nematanthus.

In a way, it was completely different with the nematanthus. This little one almost prove my success with Max wrong, because in the first few days she spent in my room right next to Max, she dropped her buds. I did my research, like I had done when I bought Max (though neither my mother or my grandmother could help me, because they have never had a nematanthus before). I was looking at her dark green leafes and I didn't know what to do. It was clear she wasn't feeling comfortable in my room, though she didn't die right away, she just refused to bloom.
I had to realize that the nematanthus is more sensitive and more demanding than Max is. It was easy with Max: I just smiled at him proudly and he was happy, he felt at ease, and both of us were satisfied. So at a certain point, I literally told the nematanthus: I don't let you die. Made another vow as well, which brought a tiny vision along, but that's not something to share with the public (I have my secrets as well). The nematanthus arrived in November 2013, and around the first weeks of February 2014 a discovered she's growing a new sprout. Before that I was sure she would stay the way she were after dropping her flowerbuds (still hoping for some progress and growth, though I couldn't be 100% sure about the success), but more and more new sprouts appeared, and grew into new branches, aiming towards the window. I didn't do more than this during the whole time (ever since I made that vow): I was speaking to her, I was encouraging her and asked her not to give up, and I made her sure that I love her. She got the same treatment as Max always had, and kept talking to both of them. And then, in the end of August, last year, a flowerbud appeared on her, and though after blooming she didn't bring more flowers for a while, when I got back from Hungary in January two new flowerbuds apperared... and then again two more... and by now I discover every week a few new buds on the nematanthus.
The potted plant I was sure (regardless my bold vow, I don't let you die) I will only be able to keep in a vegetative state (without flowers) for a while, is now blooming, and I am grateful for every single little bud. This plant-experience reminds me to my grandfather (from my mother's side): the real plant and tree expert is him. He just smiles at his plants, flowers (especially his roses) and fruit trees in his garden and they are blooming, and the fruit trees are bringing delicious fruits, though the soil conditions in my hometown, Dévaványa is not a kind that a plant or a tree would wish for. And my grandfather also speaks to them, sometimes without speaking.

OK, why am I telling you about this gardening success of mine? In my opinion working together in an ensemble, working on your own development or your singing pupil's development is very much like gardening. And I am not talking about the botanical side of gardening, but taking care of a garden. I have never seen a good gardener whose garden would have been messy or filled with sick and dying plants, while taking care of others' gardens perfectly fine.
I obviously wanted to get better when I bought Max, and I wished for recovering when I saw the nematanthus dropping her flowers. I had to realize that not every potted plant needs the same treatment, just like not every individual is able to handle the same treatment when you teach them or work with them. It is essential that you stay calm and flexible at handling their problems, but above these you have to love them. Talent - doesn't matter if we are talking about a colleague's, a pupil's or your own - should be treated with love, and nothing more can inspire someone than knowing that he/she is being loved. Listen to them, look at them, pay attention to them, but never ever try to change them to be in a certain way on purpose, or force your way to the bottom of their heart. Be gentle, remain open and curious about the results they come up with: you never know what kind of and how many flowerbuds they'll show you. Just let them sing, guide them (based on what they need as an individual), comfort them when they are down, and never leave their side in crucial moments, just be their safety net. That's all they need.