Blessed are the no'-s and rejections

You are reading the blog of someone who got rejected many times. Before I got in the Early Music department of the conservatory in Tilburg, I had got rejected from two other Hungarian Conservatories, and got accepted to one but for financial reasons, the class didn't start (yes, it's a thing in Hungary). Regardless the fact that I'm not an ugly or mean person I have been rejected as woman by men as well, believe it or not. 

Yet, I rejoice and I say: God bless those no's and rejections!

For some reason we consider hearing "no" or rejection as a negative, and it is completely fine to feel that way when we come across them. It is important though that we don't stay in this negative mindset, because it can be more damaging than anyone woul ever think. It's OK to lick your wounds, you need it to recover properly from a bad experience. 

I don't know why, but rejection and being told "no" has always been a motivation for me to work harder to want even more than I initially wanted. If I think about it now, my life is filled with rejection and "no", yet I see them as signs pointing in a different direction or even pointing out what I need to work on more. Sometimes encountering rejection is just indicating that you need to change the method and not the direction. Also people tend to say rather "no" than giving a detailed feedback on what they actually not confortable with - I know, because I'm doing this exact same thing (I know, not really smart of me, but I'm just as much human as anyone else). 

Of course I don't see rejection as a feedback on my deeds at first, I even flip out maybe, but after I get my act together, I reflect on it, take a good look at it, sort out what I did out of miscalculations, or which elements were based on my fears and number of other factors, and then I change my method. The goal is the same.

Singing and music has always been present in my life ever since I was born (even before, I think, for I listened to music and the baptist church's repertory in my mother's womb). I decided quite late to become a singer and before I'd have become an early musician I wanted to be an opera singer - I think, I mentioned this before. In reality, I didn't want anything else, and I don't want anything else even today than sing as much as possible and back then opera seemed the most logical choice, and I was also fond of the genre.

Who knows? If I'd have never got accepted to Tilburg to study early music, I would have become an opera singer and who knows, I could have been able to make it first into smaller and later some bigger roles. However, the stuff that I am doing now is very much different from what I had initially imagined back then when I was 17 years-old. As an opera singer I would depend on an opera company, my agent, my pupils and Lord knows what else. I would be bound to all these and I would probably feel miserable as I have always longed for independence and freedom, to be able to fly freely without wings even. 

What do I have now?

I'm a singer specialized in early repertories (medieval, Renaissance and Baroque), I have different ensembles, and I am coordinating our projects together with my colleagues whom I can also call my friends - true friends who would never let me down (in the opera world your relationship is less likely like that with your colleagues - although there are exceptions, of course). If I don't become a singer the way I did I would be a different person for sure. I am free and independent. I have found balance and I have found my own way, and all that thanks to all the rejections I had to meet and all the "no" I had to hear. 

Sometimes we have an idea about what would be the best for us, but my experience is that things have never turned out the way I expected them to, instead they turned out much better. I even had the chance to experiment with improvising operas in two different ways! How cool is that?

Welcome

Yes, yes, another singer/musician begins to blog about music, feelings and such, in this sense this blog is nothing new, but... But as every individual is different, and every voice is different, therefore this particular's singer's blog will be unavoidably different from any other blog about singing. I was considering the possibility of going on youtube and make a singing vlog instead of writing about it, but then I thought I don't want to be another Eric Arceneaux (whose work and art I appreciate a lot, and please check out his channel on Youtube, it's awesome!) by giving you all kinds of singing excercizes and showing tricks in order to let you sing better. No, I will not give you scales and excercizes, neither anatomy lectures or approve how tasteless can too much vibration in the voice can be on particular repertoire's... Nope, I don't want to do that.

I would like to talk about how I became a singer, and also how I think as a singer about the development of the voice, discussing singing technique (not by bringing up scales and such), methods and approaches that ever helped me, and also history(!) of singing and singers. I have met only a few singing teachers who actually knew or talked about these things, so why not putting them on one (blog)spot?

I wasn't born in a traditional musician family, though music played an important role in my family I am one of the very few that actually chose music as a profession. Everyone else in my family chose something down to earth as a profession (my grandmother was working in the financial sector, my parents have a printing business, and so on), and actually my intention was to become a writer, journalist or anything that pays well and gives a good financial support. And then last year of grammar school came and all the lessons in music school took their effect and I decided to become a singer. Actually first I wanted to became an opera singer, but later I figured out that I don't have the natural great voice for opera - and now I know, that a volume and voice can be developed, but it takes a lot of time and hard work.
So as you can see, you can become a singer (which is rather irrational and emotional), even if you are a rather "rational"- and "analytic"-type person (more of a scholar than a true artist and musician by blood) like for example me,

I would like to tell you what I believe in as a singer. And by that I don't mean to say I'm right, or that this is the only true path you can follow to become a singer or to find the "singer" in yourself. This is my story: it might be an example to follow or to avoid as much as possible. The choice is yours.