An Old Hurt

First I want to say that my singing has been going so well lately (with a few setbacks) that there hasn't been much to complain about in that area.  I have also accepted that my primary mission in life right now is to provide love and care to another human being at the end of her life.  I don't have the time or energy to battle the NYC unpaid opera scene, which seems to mostly be a training ground for emerging professionals under 35, or a place for quasi-professionals in their 30s and 40s, or even in some cases 50s to sing roles they aren't getting paid to sing.  I have basically cut it off, the way someone who is made unhappy by a trigger tries to avoid it.  I never go to any of their performances.  I don't even go to the Met.  Tonight I am using some money I was given for my birthday to "treat myself" to something and going to the ballet.

I also had a (mutual) "unfriending frenzy" several years ago with most of the quasi-professional singers (some of whom are professional voice teachers) on Facebook.  I envied them, they had contempt for me (or for people that I perceived as being like me) and there were just too many negative emotions in the mix.  To me a "friend" on Facebook is someone who cares about me and my well-being and these people didn't.  I now only have a small number of professional or quasi-professional singers on my friends list.

Yesterday, I was heartsick to see a post by a woman I genuinely care about, someone who has been to Hell and back and come through it a heroine in blazing armor, containing some musings about the differences between "amateur" and "professional" singers (or musicians in general).  Of course I had a knee-jerk negative reaction to the whole thing, but after cooling off, my point is "Why Dichotomize"?  If a teacher wants to steer a student toward professional behavior, really, all she needs to do is list desirable behaviors.  Why bring in an adversary, the much caricatured amateur (who in people's minds mostly seems to be a lazy version of Hyacinth Bucket) at all. To make generalizations about amateur singers is no different than making generalizations about ethnic groups, blondes, or overweight people.  Some amateur singers are just that.  They sing choral music for fun.  They will absorb a certain amount of knowledge if it's presented to them but that's the extent of their interest.  They probably don't practice between rehearsals other than to plunk out the music if they're unsure of it.

In my choir there are no "professionals".  There are trained and untrained singers.  The untrained singers, yes, are more likely to not make choir rehearsal a priority, so they may be late or have a "conflict" that could have been avoided (like theater tickets - I wouldn't buy a theater ticket for a Thursday, for example). They most likely don't warm up at home; they wouldn't know how.  So they rely on the group warmup.  I doubt they complain about the group warmup, they are not knowledgeable enough.  I have complained about some of the group warmups (and I always warm up at home) obviously not to the choir director but occasionally to my voice teacher, if I find them vocally un-helpful (like singing a-le-lu-ya by attacking the same note four times all the way up to a high B flat and using that as a "test" of how high someone can sing). As for asking to switch parts if a part is uncomfortable (something else this woman mentioned - I am weaving a lot of her comments in and out of this post) again, that is something that a trained singer who understands her instrument might do (I certainly do, since as a mezzo I'm between a rock and a hard place a lot of the time), but an untrained singer probably wouldn't again, because she doesn't understand how her instrument works.  But why is that a "bad" thing? Not everyone has the same level of commitment or interest and if the group is an eclectic one, there are ways to make room for a variety of skill levels.

A number of other things that this woman mentions really have more to do with having a bad attitude or being a narcissist than being an amateur.  Most amateurs I know wouldn't presume to think they know more than the director.  They mostly just follow along - or leave, if they're uncomfortable, which is the prerogative of an amateur.  I know one rule I follow is that as I am not getting paid to sing, if I find myself in a situation that makes me uncomfortable (this only happened once) I will simply leave.  Which is one reason I now exclusively "make my own opportunities".  If I am producing a concert or an opera in a nursing home, I know that I will not be treated disrepectfully by a person in authority.

And I certainly don't think "amateurs think they're already great"!  Most are quite humble and know what they don't know.  If they aren't striving to improve as much as professionals or serious avocationals, it's because the art form for them is a hobby, not a passion, and they aren't willing to put in the extra work, and they know this.

As for "everything is beneath an amateur unless they're starring".  Well, I can only speak for myself.  That is somewhat true for the following reason.  My "biological clock" for doing anything with singing has ticked past the 11th hour.  I am living on borrowed time.  Singing Azucena, for example, in even the humblest of venues, is on my bucket list.  Singing in the chorus of Il Trovatore if I am not getting paid, is not. ETA: I must add here that I would never think of something as being "beneath me", only that it is not something I can afford to spend time on now, since I have so little of it, singing is not my livelihood, and there are roles, scenes, arias, and songs, that I yearn to sing before I physically can't any more.

And ah, if only professionals did not pay to partake!!  If only those people who rant and rave all over the Internet about how demeaning it is to be asked to sing for free would stay away from the opera companies that do not pay not to mention the pay to sings.  But these very people, these people who thought it was shocking that I sang the Habanera in a bookstore for free as a form of fun for me and the onlookers, insinuate themselves into every nook and cranny of the unpaid opera world, pushing the amateurs out.

The last audition I went to involved an opportunity to sing a role in a Handel opera from a book in someone's living room.  This was for a group that has "singthroughs" of operas in a woman's living room.  People pay her for the privilege.  I was apparently turned down because she wanted the opportunity to go to someone who was going to sing that role professionally and wanted a rehearsal.  I personally think that a group like that should be for people, yes, who have to audition to prove that they can sing the role, but whose only opportunity to sing that role or one like it will be in someone's living room.

Lastly, to think that only professionals recognize that a group of any kind is a number of people with different ideas and a person/team to pull it all together is absurd.  Anyone who has ever worked in an office, played a sport, or sung in an amateur glee club should know this. If you want to discourage negative behaviors, think of another word.