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.

Twists in the system

So just to make this clear: I'm not against public education and conservatories. Actually I had a great time during the 6 years of conservatory at Fontys Conservatorium in Tilburg: interesting and challenging projects, getting to know all sorts of people (crazy musicologists, autenticity-obsessed instrumentalists, nice people, amazing singers and inspiring teachers). Though I am still not entirely sure whether the Prussian result-oriented education system is the perfect education model for singers, and at the same time I'm sure that applying a few adjustments would lead to some very remarkable results.

Actually, in general I am absolutely sure and convinced that the Prussian result-oriented system is not the perfect education model for teaching performing arts. The funny thing about this whole thing that teachers know this very well, but as soon as you get to the board of the school and the students and their results become numbers in statistics, sh*t hits the fan and art education is being pushed into marketing terms and norms, and in the end the ones who damage the most are the students. Being considered as a single number in the statistics puts pressure on the student, which is not a bad thing, but the more sensitive ones just barely able or completely unable to deal with the stress this result-based system brings. That's why you can see many crying dancers, musicians (especially singers) on the corridors around the time of exams and personal evaluation.
But the core of the problem is what society demands us to do: be fast, produce good results and make a lot of money. If we are talking about arts these demands will only bring misfortune and make artists miserable. Why? I think it's obvious, but here's the thing:

1. You need to take the time for doing well something. Sometimes it happens in a split of a second, but many of us need time, and rushing us will only make us frustrated and anxious which leads to even slower process.
2. Producing good results is a contradiction in itself, since the term "good" is a relative; a result's goodness very much depends on the situation in question.
3. If you think you can make a lot of money with arts, you have definitly chosen for the wrong carreer. Nowadays you can make a lot of money by making people miserable or benefit from miserable people (for example a lawyer, an undertaker, a doctor or a financial expert will always have a good salary, because there will be always lawsuits for lawyers, dead to bury, sick people to cure and poor people). Every profession connected to arts will always cost more work than you actually get paid for, and also you make people happy and you entertain them (hopefully).

Pushing a singer (or any artist) into good results in short time is the worst and most inhuman deed ever, because these results cannot hold. I will never forget my ever first singing exam evaluation. Just a little background to the story: I am from Hungary, a country which is highly praised for the musicians and singers it produces, but the fact is that although organ, piano, violin and any other instrumental education is really amazing with amazing technique, you barely find any singing teacher who actually will teach proper and useful singing technique. There is no education for that at all; they help you build your repertory (which, in my opinion, you can do yourself as well, but whatever...) but they don't give you a good and firm basis to help this repertory and your future carreer. It is not because they are mean or evil, they are just absolutely clueless (there are exceptions of course, that's out of the question). So by the time I got accepted to Fontys Conservatorium in Tilburg, I had several years of repertory building, but no technique. I began my studies in September 2008 and had my ever first singing exam in December 2008, and the first evaluation I got back then was this: "We are not sure that we can give you a diploma in the end of the 4th year". You can imagine how mad I got after hearing this insane sentence: I still don't understand how can anyone say anything like this to someone with barely 4 months of vocal training behind the back? Fortunately I was always motivated by comments like this, and after cooling my head down and crying a lot under the shower, feeling completely humiliated, I got my act together and despite the continuous comments on how my level as a singer is not good enough comparing to my classmates I worked hard and not only finished my Bachelor degree with a good result but also accepted to the Masters. I had also people who encouraged me during these years. For instance We had a masterclass with Ian Honeyman in the second year and when he saw me completely depressed by not being able to sing If music be the food of love by Henry Purcell as perfect as I wanted it to be, he asked me how long do I have proper vocal training? I told him that was the second year I am having one, to which he told me that then I have a young voice so don't worry. And you know what? He was right. I've been told at that time very often that working on your technique, on your voice is a development for a lifetime, but somehow nobody care to mention this in the end of the evaluations. Now that I think back I was thinking and what were my expectation after brief 2 years of training I think I had way too high expectations towards myself - also willing to please my singing teacher, Ildikó Hajnal, though she has never asked for it, was a wrong idea.

Another twist in this system comes from this: not only singers, instrumentalists are working on their technique during their training, and then get an evaluation on their performing skills. I mean, how sick is that? Yes, work on that scale and that excercise, but actually we won't care about that on your exam! Ehh??? As soon as I managed to understand that the exam committee won't ever pay any attention to my technique but my performance skills and I began to work on rather enjoying making music than worry about the deficiencies of my technique, my grades and evaluation became (step by step) better and better. And here's another twist: your audience doesn't care about your technique, neither are they interested in a perfect technique.

Sooo... basically we are running in circles when it comes to music education. I wonder why is that... Why can't we try to find a proper solution for the situation in question instead of sticking to solution patterns? Because that's what marketing does: using patterns, which works everywhere perfectly fine except arts, and here I'm not talking about organizing an event, I'm talking about achieving results in the personal development of a performer and/or an artist.
Why are we so obsessed with pushing arts in marketing terms and try to evaluate its relsults based on numbers while we know it doesn't work that way? It's like being a complete retard: I know this rounded shaped object won't fit in this tiny square shaped hole but I will still do my best to fit it even if I know that the round shaped object would fit in a round shaped hole, and I have to find a tiny cube for this tiny square shaped hole. Simply madness... Arts don't work like this...