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.

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...

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.

Anorexia vocalis - the singers' disease

I am not too good at Latin, I'm just guessing that "vocalis" means vocal or something that can be connected to the human voice. I've made up this fancy Latin name from the eating disorder's latin name anorexia nervosa (if anyone can correct my Latin, I will be more than happy).

Because, yes... Music industry and digital recordings produce many vocal anorexic singers. When I am talking about anorexia vocalis, I am talking about the wish of every young singer: to sound like the big names on the recordings they hear when they are listening to CDs, tracks on Spotify, and so on... You wouldn't believe how damaging these digitally remastered and studio-steril recordings can be. But it's not the fault of studio workers, I wouldn't put the blame on them: they are just doing their job, though they assist in spreading the disease. No, no... The real suspect is the insane guy who came up with the idea of well temperament. I'm sure he just wanted to give a stable and easy system that would help musicians to find their way in the dark forest of tunings, and his intention was pure, I'm sure about that. Also, in the very beginning "well tempered" meant that the twelve notes per octave of the standard keyboard are tuned in such a way that it is possible to play music in most major or minor keys and it will not sound perceptibly out of tune.You see? People didn't play out of tune before the well temperation, it just sounded perceptibly out of tune.(Side note: I don't mean to rip on classical trained musicians, but meantone, pythagorian and other early music tunings don't equal with "playing out of tune"...). And on the other hand, this system suggests that there are no notes between E' and F': true, there is almost none for an instrumentalist (especially on a keyboard), but I assure you, there are plenty of notes between those two for a singer.

Intonation and how tuning works depends on several factor. It depends on the architecture of the building where you are singing. For example if you have ever sung in a Gothic church, or anything like that (like the Chapel at Fontys Conservatorium in Tilburg), I bet you've realized that the architecture pulls up the sound, and even if your intonation is flat, the architecture will pull it up (along with everything else) for you, while Roman churches are pushing down on your voice a little. Composers before the time of well-temperament were aware of this element, so they took it in account when they were composing a new piece (for example organum will never sound as marvelous in a Roman church as it does in Gothic cathedrals).
Another factor is the breathing: if the singer doesn't have a natural and healthy airflow, the lack of it will lead to intonational problems. If you are pushing the air instead of letting it flow, your intonation will be flat, and you cannot get into your resonance or at least you'll have some difficulties with it.

I know great singers, whom are considered having bad intonation, though they have excellent ears. They are constantly fighting with the negative feedback of exam committees and senseless concert venue directors (who - for some really weird reason - think that they know everything about singing... ridiculous...): they are told that they should develop a better intonation, but these "clever" people have no freakin' idea, that their feedback doesn't help the singer.

I suffered from anorexia vocalis as well until I figured out, that studio recordings are studio recordings, and "clever" people are not as clever as they think they are. Cleaning up the sound on a studio recording is like photoshopping a pizza into a woman. If you think it's not possible, just check the video below

I'm not saying that everyone sings like a pizza and then they are going to make a studio recording and they become a hot chic. Nope... I'm just saying that even the most excellent singers have bad days and they also sing out of tune every once in a while. I agree with Andrea von Ramm, that a concert where every single not is well in tune is a boring concert. Please, dear performer, make a mistake for me! Prove me that you are a human being like I am and you don't thing that perfect intonation rules above all. I'm interested in your talent not your perfect intonation.