Mentors

I have been wanting to make a post on this subject for a long time, and am now inspired to by the circulation of a New York TIMES review of a new book called Bounce.

The thrust of the book (or of the review, in any event) is that hard work is much more important than talent. That high achievers (in sports, the arts, or chess) differ from others in that they spend hours practicing, in a fashion the author calls "chunking". (Brings to mind all the blood, sweat, tears, and obsessive thinking I've brought to that Amneris/Radames duet lately.)

Yes, in the talent/hard work debate I've always known that hard work trumps all, but there's a third factor that was not mentioned, at least in the review.

Mentors.

Now I am not referring to the silly (and ungrammatical)cliche "It's not what you know it's who(sic) you know". I'm not talking about using connections (with or without money or sex) to buy what you want. I'm talking about having the right person or persons in your life at the right time, to give you that extra push, pep talk, compliment, or whatever, to let you know that your talent (and the hard work needed to nurture it) matters.

I think in hindsight that my overwhelming obsession with The Mentor Who Shall Not Be Discussed stemmed from his being exactly the sort of person I am talking about. If I had met him 40 years ago, and he had held the side order of flirting - or not; maybe that was what carried the message - the course of my life might have changed significantly. But by the time he appeared I was well into my 50s, a minimum of fifteen years (and that's pushing it) past the age when any serious managers, coaches, directors, or producers would give a rat's tushy if I could sound like one of the Met mezzos with a little polishing. So for good or ill (and the jury continues to be out on this) all I got out of it was a homemade production of Samson et Dalila, a gig as an unpaid church soloist, and a chance to explore my own talent as a superannuated wannabe.

But suppose I had had someone when I was younger? Suppose my mother had nurtured my singing the way she nurtured my writing? Suppose a teacher in school had noticed my voice and taken me under her wing. I know every time I mention this I sound like a disgruntled Tea Partyer, but it's really true that in Brooklyn c. 1965, in my large public high school, the Black and Latino students were encouraged so sing (or dance, or play sports) and the white and Asian students were encouraged to take advanced calculus and elective civics. My mother and her friends all loved classical music, even opera (although my mother would only go to hear Mozart, Wagner, or something contemporary) but thought my interest in performing was "silly" and that I should be out protesting the VietNam War, writing modernist poetry, or, if I was going to sing, doing something edgy and avante garde. I liked Verdi??? How middlebrow.

And then there was my smoking habit. True, no one encouraged it, but no one, not even the voice teacher I went to for a few casual lessons, sat me down and read me the riot act, saying that I had an unusual talent and that if I didn't quit smoking immediately I would ruin it. (And yes, so what if I gained 10 or 15 pounds!)

When I finally put all my destructive addictions behind me and began really singing well, there was the issue of my partner. When I fell in love with her at 25 I had no idea I was marrying an ideology not just a person. And that ideology had no room for non-income-generating activities involving spending lots of time with straight men, not to mention as sexist an art form as opera. And I was young and impressionable and bought into it. And despite having a good voice teacher, who told me all the right things regarding how and what to sing, there was no one taking a holistic approach to my life.

So what I'm saying here is that not only is talent not enough, hard work is not enough either if no one really cares. If you don't make the right connections. If the road you choose is going in the wrong direction to nurture your talent and encourage your hard work, rather than in the right one.

Well, I guess since I can't turn back the clock, I'll just have to go back to "chunking".