Keep Your Head Down and Do the Work (Part II of III)

“You’re down,” my teacher said.

“Yes.” I replied. 

“Okay. We’re gonna try to get you to a win today.” 

It’s a yearly tradition at NEC to throw the first-year graduate students into a concert of staged Handel arias. I was assigned “A dispetto d’un volto ingrato,” which was presently kicking my ass. I could sing the passages, but I couldn’t distinguish the pitches without putting aspirates in the line, tiring me out and slowing my tempo. 

“Great,” my teacher said, pulling up a recording. “Let’s try something different.” 

It was glorious. A tight baroque ensemble played the introduction with the vital quality of a punk rock band. The singer brought absolute precision to the florid passages, attacking each note with not an aspirate “h,” but something like the chiff of an organ. Distinct. 
“Let’s call that ‘martellato,’” my teacher said. “Try it.” 

“I hear it,” I said, “but I don’t think I can do that myself.”

“Well, can you do it slow?”

We started slow. Painfully slow. We got it first at 60 BPM. Then up five metronome clicks, down two. Up three, down one. Up five, down six. Up ten. And so on.
By the time we reached 90 BPM, I was in a state of utter joy. Oh my God, I thought to myself, I’m doing it. Up another 8. Down five. Up ten. I was soaring. 

We ended at 108 BPM, with crystal clear articulation of every note.

Then we both broke out in joyful laughter. 

We got to a win.  

Immediately after my lesson, I started to reflect. It wasn’t perfect–but that wasn’t the point. The point was that I did a thing. In half an hour! I walked out of the studio suddenly able to do something I thought I couldn’t do before, and with the assurance that I could continue to work in a way that would produce measurable results. “Good enough” stopped mattering because I knew the way to “better.” I was empowered. 

This is the experience I now aim to create for my students in every lesson. I can’t build your voice for you in half an hour, but I can show you what to do to build it up yourself. And the knowledge that you know what to do is infinitely more valuable–because while I wasn’t “good enough” after that lesson, I was a person who set a goal and attained it. I began to believe that I was the kind of person who could do the work. And if I could do the work…

I lived by the mantra. “Keep your head down and do the work,” I repeated to myself, whenever comparison would come with its demands, insisting I wasn’t “good enough”, suggesting I should question whether I ever would be. My technique wasn’t where I wanted it to be, but that didn’t matter. I had exactly the tools I needed, and the perfect playground to explore how to get it there. 

I’ve been doing the work ever since.

(But wait, there’s more! Come back next week to learn what it all means)

Stay Honest, Stay You

–Lucas

P.S.:

If you’re a singer and you’re not sure you know how to “do the work,” or you’ve been feeling discouraged or “stuck,” or you’re wondering if what you have can ever be “good enough,” give me an hour of your time and let me help you to your next win.