The Serious Amateur: Does S/he Exist Here Anymore?

I got a lot of helpful feedback from some comments to the more anguished posts I made recently, certainly much clarification.

The only statement I doubt the truth of is:

It requires so much preparation that I don't know that you'd have an easy time getting a group of people together to do it just for fun.

Aren't there people, people whose jobs are boring and whose families are gone (or who never had "families" to begin with) who would be happy to do just that?

Maybe not on a regular basis.  No.  What differentiates the professionals from the serious amateurs is that the professionals may have to do this daily, for weekly (at least) performances, whereas the serious amateurs may only do it to culminate in one or two performances a year.

I think it is a fairly recent phenomenon that everyone is expected to love, and feel fulfilled by, their work.  Most people are lucky to have a job that pays a decent salary, that is pleasant enough to go to, satisfying enough to do, and that provides benefits.  Very few people have a calling.  The difference, I think, is that now everyone expects to.

I think this is particularly American.  I have a friend in England who works as a shop "manageress" where once a year everyone in the shop dresses up as a fairy tale character (I don't know at whose expense) and puts on a pantomime.  And they take this very seriously.  Some people are more talented, some less, and some discover talents they never knew they had.  I can't imagine anyone doing this here.  Softball teams, yes, because sports are the American religion.  The last place I work made attempts at these sorts of things but it was implied that they were only for lower level staff.

Many small cities in England have community theaters that put on musicals and plays, and they use a "convenience sample".  For many people with dull jobs or stressful household responsibilities this is the highlight of their year.  When I was growing up in Brooklyn there was a group like this, started by two homemakers who had wanted to be actresses.  They cast themselves in most of the plum roles but not always.  It was for the enjoyment of the people in the neighborhood, who wanted to do something after work with talents they were keeping on a back burner.  I sang in the chorus of Babes in Toyland when I was about 12.  The group still exists, but it is now a magnet for people from the tri-state area who are auditioning on and off Broadway.

When I sang with amateur opera groups in the 1970s (right here on the Upper West Side), no conservatory graduates were singing there.  They had their own career path, which was fine.  And there were very few of them, as I have said.  They didn't all make the big time; some had church jobs and did something else during the day, others taught voice or high school music.  Certainly no one came here from another city to sing in an opera group that did not pay.  Some of the people in those groups had magnificent voices and studied regularly with good teachers, but they did something else during the day.  They had not been music majors.  The woman I had hoped to become like (although she sang in a different fach) had a very high level job at a nonprofit (she finished her work life as a CEO but continued to sing) and, two or three times a year, would sing a leading role that appealed to her (she often chose obscure operas that would attract New York TIMES critics) and endure the intensive end-stage rehearsal period tired, or take a few vacation days.  She once tried to negotiate something with a major opera house, but the money was not good enough and she wanted to keep her job.  I could have been very happy doing that - which I guess is not that afield from what I am doing, only that I am producing whatever it is myself.

I know accountants, editors, and administrative assistants, even some doctors, who live for their weekend country dancing, or pottery, or volunteer chamber music group.

I had said I didn't like the word "amateur" because it has developed so many negative connotations, being associated with people who wander in and out of rehearsals when it's convenient, are vague about commitments, don't practice or learn their parts, and don't follow directions.

I realize that some of what went wrong around (not with) that bookstore gig is that it was pitched to the wrong market.  Something like that was meant for someone like me, not for the people who read the Forum.  Does a professional career-track singer really want or need to sing a 5 minute aria in a bookstore?  It was a bit of fun, that's all.  I could easily have been an employee of that publishing company whom, if they knew I studied classical singing, they might have asked to do it as a lark.

I think the line between amateurs and professionals has, on the one hand become adversarial and on the other hand, become blurred.  One way in which I was very naive when I began singing again 9 years ago was that I assumed people posting things in singing communities online, and blogging about their personal affairs (as distinct from the high level singers whose public blogs are part of their professional identity) would be people like me: amateurs who wanted to talk about vocal technique, health, and how to balance singing, work, and family. I would have thought that professional singers would have been too busy for all that, and too protective of their public personae to complain, tell off color jokes, and - gasp! - swear!