Personal Growth

I need to be working, but I wanted to document the personal growth I exhibited today.

Quite by accident (well, no; that's a bit disingenuous) I stumbled upon a blog post from one of the blowhards whose writing made me feel angry and self-deprecating.  I took her off my blog reading list, but a voice teacher whose blog I do read, whose studio is one of the pages I have "liked" on Facebook, reposted something from the blowhard, so, yes, I read it.

There has been a lot of uproar lately about all the "child prodigy" opera singers, who, apparently, are singing Puccini on Youtube.  I don't listen to these things because I'm too busy, and if I'm going to listen to something on Youtube I want it to be something that I can learn from (for example a rendition of a song or aria that I am working on).  I agree that they are probably ruining their voices, not to mention their psyches, by doing this, but as for thinking that they are damaging Art, with a capital "A", I am not that arrogant.

The post by the blowhard was a recycling of her favorite themesong: that she is the real deal, and these imitators (whether they're teens, beauty contestants, or hobbyists with other day  jobs) are not.  Hers was not the first diatribe I had seen about these "prodigies".  What differentiated it was that it was used as an opportunity to engage in another bragfest about herself.  In addition to railing about the "prodigies" she also went into an elaborate riff on all the things she is not good at (sewing)/sort of good at, but O!M!G! not a professional!! (cooking)/superb at (singing opera).

OK, I effing got it!!  I am not as good an opera singer as Miss Blowhard.  OK OK OK OK I get the point!!  (Now I want to say here, lest I am accused of being paranoid, that I don't think she was talking about me, although I saw myself in relation to opera singer as she sees herself in relation to chef.)

But why does she constantly have to belabor this point again and again?  What I said before is that people who are happy with themselves don't engage in this type of rant; they are too busy doing what they're good at.

I earn my living editing.  There are bad editors, and people who call themselves "word people" who don't know the difference between a pronoun that's meant to be the subject of a sentence and one that's meant to be the object of a sentence.  (A woman I know posted on Facebook that she is a "grammar fanatic" and then went on to say "there are certain errors that amuse my boyfriend and I"  Huh???  At first I thought she might have written that tongue in cheek but on second reading I decided she hadn't.)  Do I spend my time getting my "knickers in a twist" over such things?  No.

I will have to admit that I got angrier over reading that blog post than I would have liked to. Whereas the world would probably be a better place without phony child opera stars, I don't know if it would be a better place without hard working  amateur performers who will never be as good as the professionals who have studied all their lives but who still would like our afternoon in the sun, performing music we love in front of an audience, without constantly being reminded of our inferiority; or that we are somehow damaging Art if a random audience can't tell the difference between, say, me and Miss Blowhard.

But I am proud of myself that I did not let this ruin my day, or my excitement about planning my Carmen concert event.

I read, I felt sick to my stomach, I made a Facebook post, and then I went back to working on perfecting my pronunciation of the Catalan dialect I will be singing in "El Cant dels Aucells".  And I sang through it twice with my little keyboard, which is near my front door.  And then I pulled out my German dictionary to translate "Nun Wandre Maria".