Life sometimes forces us to face our fears and to look in the mirror and take a good hard look at yourself. Soon we see the areas in which you struggle but never before have been named, so they remained ambiguous. So these struggles we have put off facing now are staring right back at us and demanding that we address them. Ie. Those good long hard looks require a sufficient dose of reality need to be augmented with grace. We are imperfect people.
In a program in which you are constantly asked to examine your inner workings closely its a matter of time before personal revelations start to occur.
So often in life we focus on what we don't have, or where we fall short. This became apparent to me this week, when I stood in front of a professor I admire, dumbfounded and struggling for words. She asked what I feel I do well in regards to singing. I replied honestly, that three years ago I would have had a quick answer, "I sing a mean legato line, I can feel viscerally the music I sing which translates to a decent performance and my 'E' vowel is sublime." These things over the last few years has disintegrated in the refining fire of my music education. In a world where we only ever focus on areas of improvement, and places that need polishing, the corners of our talents now house all those things we "do well," and are currently collecting dust and are being forgotten. As I struggled to find an up to date reply for this professors question, the health of my art form seemed to be threatened. I've expressed my concern about this epidemic in the music world about the carrot on at the end of a stick, it is what motivates us and pulls us forward. The desire from something unattainable becomes an obsession, and to fuel this sick love we focus ourselves on our areas of weakness. This mentality in the long run serves in a strange, backwards way that will likely cause more harm than good. We need to address the good and the bad, the strengths and the weaknesses together to be well rounded. This musical journey has been fixed with these types of frustrations, and has provided insight into my weaknesses.
