The Value of Vision

Every performance requires a certain level of preparation. I'm sure that most everyone that has sung at one point or another has had an experience where they had to sing something on the spot and completely fell on their face. It's the dreaded public fail and it's in the back of every singers mind when they perform. With more preparation typically comes more confidence and thus more success in performance. Confidence tends to be the lynch pin in a successful singing performance.

The hardest thing I have encountered as a singer and a teacher is the mental aspect of confidence. Our natural fight or flight instincts don't help either. Everyone knows what being nervous feels like. We get butterflies in our stomach, we feel sick, we sweat, we cry, we fidget and fixate and try everything we can think of to try to make it stop. Sometimes we even give up before we try. When our bodies make us that uncomfortable it's no wonder we let our minds go with it. We start to doubt whether we practiced enough, if we are really any good at all. We imagine every possible negative outcome.

I was working with a student before an audition yesterday and everything she was saying to me came down to "I know I'm going to fail". It didn't matter what I said or how I said it. This girl was determined not to succeed.

For a long time I battled this probably more than some singers do when they're first starting out. I wanted so badly to be amazing, but I held myself back believing somewhere deep down that if I never actually put my best out there I could never truly be told that my best wasn't good enough. For as far as I've come from that first day I stepped foot in my first college voice teacher's studio, I still catch myself in this mental trap.

It was probably one of the hardest things I have ever done to allow myself to be so vulnerable as to put my best out there with the belief that my best was good enough. I think what makes it so difficult for singers and for teachers is that diagnosing this problem requires a singer to be deeply honest with themselves.

What makes this even more difficult is that it's not just limited to any given performance. It permeates every part of your singing. It's the willingness to try something out of your comfort zone. Its allowing yourself to be better than you believe you can be.

I was working with a student today and every time I work with her I can't help but picture what her ultimate success could look like. She just drips with talent and passion. I try to find this in all of my students as much as I can. This girl makes it easy. The classical radio station has a program on the weekends that features young musicians of exceptional talent. I have heard young girls sing on this program that I could not believe were only in high school. I can see this student being like that. She has the potential to be larger than life and the humility to make her irresistible. But she doesn't believe it. She doesn't picture herself the way I do.

I know that for me, developing this vision for myself took time and influence from many different mentors. It probably helped to have a few of them tell me to throw in the towel because it just wasn't going to work for me. I like a challenge. I can completely understand their frustration now. As a teacher I can only hope that my diligence and vision for my students is contagious enough that eventually they see and in themselves what I see and believe that they are not only capable but deserving of the level of performance that they could reach.