Priorities

There's something I learned a few years ago, like five or six years ago: set your priorities.

But what are these priorites? How can you decide what's the most important for you at the moment you set them? This morning I've found the ever first interview I gave in my life from 2014, the year when I graduated from my MA studies. At that time artistic development was all I cared for and I was sure that the rest will come by itself. I wanted to develop artistically by growing as a person, figuring out who I really am - just like every young adult does in their 20s.

I remember back then I wanted to make it as a performing artist, a singer, I wanted to be a bright hot star, but not for myself but for others to recongnize my talent, and maybe I wanted badly to grab someone's attention - like it would mattered if that person recognizes my talent. Today I know that my talent is just one little detail of the person who I am. I don't need anyone's recognition anymore. I am fully capable woman, standing on my own, just like I've always been. Ever since I don't care about success, fame, wealth or being able to make a living out of singing and music, I am free. Not caring about these earthly treasures liberated me completely, and now I have time for more valuable priorities, such as family, friends, my garden and above all these: myself.

I look back of my reckless 20s with nostalgy and with a little laughter. It's not that I don't want to face beautiful musical challanges anymore, but I changed my mentality about it. I try to choose my battles and challanges carefully in such way that I am aware that I am the one who takes care of the firm emotional background, I am the one who takes care of Johanna Földesi, and not someone else. I'm almost sure that even if I would be in a relationship, I would still be the only one who would be responsible for this task and I would only have a tiny support and space given to be able to do so. Actually I was a little kid when I had the very strong feeling that I would have to learn to be able to be alone and to be a good companion for my very self. This childhood memories follows me on my path every day, and sometimes life just gets overwhelming and too much - at times like this I just stop, take a good look at myself and I decide whether I could use some help or not.
It doesn't sound too flattering, right? Don't worry, it's not as bad as it might sound like.

But back to priorities! Here are some top priorities of the 33 years old Johanna Földesi.

Quality above quantitiy
I remember when I was in my 20s I could do a thousand stuff in a day and now I am happy if from the 6 tasks I planned for a day I can do the half of it, but then I do them right. It gives me now more satisfaction than the amount of tasks I complete per day.

Reputation
You know, as you age, it's all about dignity. There are certain things I would do at the age of 33 years, what I would have definitly had done when I was 23. Fame and wealth can shine so bright that you don't see the dirt and the wrong under it. You're blinded by their illusion.
Once you get to a certain age, and you don't have to be 50+ to be an example for the younger generation, to become an influence for a youngster. I believe that as an artist you're responsible for those who look up to you and your work and your morals should show that. So stop messing around and grow up! Act like an adult person, even if it seems hard. You can be a kid again when you perform, but accepting adulthood will only help you to develop further as a human being.

Family and friends
Not blindfoldedly and not putting them before yourself, but they are top priority. And sometimes you have friends who make up for some family members - no offense, really. Of course, in the end you're the one that's responsible for yourself, but you also need some support from your family and friends, and sometimes you have to be their support. Whatever happens, just do your best to be there for them: check on them, ask them how they are doing and ask it in such way that you're truly interested in their answer - you know what I'm talking about!

Be lazy sometimes
I have a very dear old friend in Vienna. This friend of mine a bit older than 80, but just as fresh as any young adult. Every once in a while I go and visit her in Vienna and then we talk about what has happened to us since we saw each other for the last time. Even though I spin around much less than I used to, I still do a lot of things and most of the times these "lot of things" happen in paralel with eachother. So there was me telling my friend how many things I am involved with, what amazing projects, and my job, and so on, to which she just told me: but are you also lazy sometimes? I just laughed and said that yes, every once in a while I just do nothing - although at that time I wasn't living up to it that much as I do now.
What I want to say is that you should be lazy sometimes. Just do nothing and enjoy it. And when I say "nothing" I mean literally nothing. Before I fully embraced the dolce far niente (= pleasant idleness) I seriously started to wonder about why am I so busy all the time? Am I busy because I'm really busy and things must get done, or because I think they must get done. Huge difference. Also, are these things coming from my side or is it something that necessary for the everyday life? I came to the conclusion that there are very few obligations in our lives that really are obligations, therefore I decided to be more relaxed about it, and one of the consequences of this decision was that my body let go of a lot of tension and I changed as a singer.
My way of thinking also have changed. For example if someone tells me that I should go to an audition of a talent show, because I'm told that I'm talented and it looks good on my CV and it would get me good connections, doesn't mean that I really should do that. It's rather that I have the freedom to choose to do the audition and even if I choose not to do it, I'm still the same talented singer I've always been.

Settle down
There comes a moment in life when you get more mature and you are not as bouncy-bouncy as you were when you were much younger. There comes a time in your life when you just want to have something to rely on and you just want to have a quite life with working in your garden, taking long walks in a forest and enjoying a glass of wine and cooking together with a good friend on a Friday evening. You start to feel that you need a safe harbour where you can return to for recovery and rejuvination.


It's funny how priorities change in just 5-6 years time. Of course, not everyone's priorities change this early as mine did, and that's also perfectly fine. I think, standing alone throughout my entire life anticipated this change. I had more time to figure things out for myself. I wouldn't call myself wise, I'm improvising through my entire life and there are just a few things I'm sure about, and those are my priorities. And the best thing about it, that your priorities will change as your life changes. Or at least that's how I survive, I believe...

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!

The scary freedom

It doesn't matter how I look at it, most people are afraid of freedom. At first I didn't really understand why, because I was convinced that everybody wants to be free, but I am coming from a post-communist country from the Eastern block of Europe. Though you better know, dear Western people, that neither Poland or my own country, Hungary doesn't like to be considered as being an "Eastern European", we are actually in the middle of Europe, and you know that, but you are too lazy to make a decent distinction. In our ears, being considered to belong to Eastern Europe brings back the memories of belonging to the Soviet Union, and it doesn't matter how exotic you think it was for us, it wasn't that fun. Mainly, because two or three generation grew up in a regime where people were forced to think and act in a certain way, so people were cuirtailed of their personal freedom. They couldn't travel whenever and wherever they wanted to and they were not allowed to say what they think about the regime. For Westerners it is even impossible to imagine what a nightmare of decades they were for the now post-communist countries.

For me it is just amazing to see how people can hold unto captivity, and how they are afraid of reaching out for freedom. I have been thinking about this for a while and now I think I figured what is so scary about freedom for most of us. Being free doesn't only mean that you are doing what you want to do, but that you have to take the responsibility for your words, deeds, decisions, and actually for whatever you are doing. You are basically stand on your own with anything you do and nobody will make decisions for you, neither will take the responsibility for them, and it is a huge risk to take.

And even then, the funniest thing is that everybody was born to be free in any single way. It is just an illusion that you may not have the choice to choose on your own free will. You are free to choose for the good or for the bad. If you are in captivity, you chose to be in captivity - in order to survive, probably... When you realize this, and you try to break free, and you manage to become free, the first period in like a "honeymoon-period", and then for some really weird reason when the "honeymoon-period" is over, and reality snaps you in the face and you have to face the consequences of your own acts, you just would like to go back where you were, because that seems immediately much better than it was back then (your memory sugarcoats the past). Yes, it does take a big courage to take the responsibility and face the consequences. It is not always nice, and you have to face the fact that nobody will make a schedule for you, but you yourself, and if you want to use your time in an effective way, you have to plan smart. It also takes to stick with the people who actually helping you in this and get rid of those who want to tell you what to do - anyway, after you are spending your days in freedom you get annoyed with these kind of people, so in one way or another they will disappear from your daily life. And then you are smiling at the things you don't have to do anymore.

So actually not freedom itself that is scary, but everything that comes with it: the unknown, the challenge and to face your own bad habits every day.