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...

Wings of an angel

Do you believe in the Angel of Music? Call me sentimental, but there was a time when I believed in it. Or at least I liked the idea, and the image of this angel launched me towards becoming a singer.

I was still attending grammar school and took music lessons at the music school in Békescsaba (piano, choir rehearsals and singing) when I read the The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux (and became a dedicated fan of the musical with the original cast later on as well), and I've got so fascinated by the image of the Angel of Music, and that the Phantom, Erik became this angel for Christine Daaé, that I wanted to meet him as well. My ever first goal that I wanted to achieve was to meet this magic entity somehow. I was amazed of the beautiful lovestory between Erik and Christine (I hated Raoul with a passion for stepping in their way), and I understood Christine's feelings to the utmost. Regardless her fear of Erik's looks, she respected him and loved him in her own gentle way, but she wasn't brave enough to stay by Erik's side - and I didn't like that.

I thought I will be able to find this angel, but instead as soon as I began to be involved with ensemble singing I started to grow my own wings as I was singing with others. Especially when I am singing in a choir and I know I have to pull the people on my part, I imagine that I spread my invisible wings above them and I take them from each phrase to another. I wanted to be able to lead and pull people with my voice and I grew wings to do that, but these wings are not good for flying (unfortunately... I've always wanted to be able to fly - either by having real wings, or without them), but they are good for singing, and that's good enough for me - at least for now...

Am I an angel? I don't think so. Do I behave sometimes as an angel? Maybe. Do I like my wings? If I'm singing or if I would like to protect someone dear to me, I love it. I just have to figure out what to do with those feathers all over around me...

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.