In ev'ry job that must be done, there is an element of fun…
You find the fun and snap! The job's a game!
And ev'ry task you undertake becomes a piece of cake!
A lark! A spree! It's very clear to me
That a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down…Mary Poppins
How do you get yourself to master something you're not naturally good at? How about something you hate?
Professional singers have to be superb at a staggeringly diverse collection of skills. I know of no one who is naturally talented at every one of the skills you need for a singing career, and I certainly know of no one who is equally enthusiastic about them all!
It's tough enough to master vocal technique, but opera singers need (among other things) strong foreign language skills, enough music theory to interpret some incredibly challenging scores, and knowledge of performance traditions covering a vast range of musical styles. If your specialty is musical theatre you also have to cultivate fierce acting and dance chops, for starters.
And if you get your training at a conservatory or college, you will probably have to take several years of Keyboard Studies.
And then demonstrate your Proficiency.
I loathed Keyboard Studies.
I have always thought of myself as someone who loves to practice. As a kid, I played my clarinet every day until my lips gave out. As a singer, I continue to relish the time I have available for technique and repertoire study. But I absolutely could not bring myself to practice piano. I failed piano lessons at least one semester as an undergraduate and I have no idea how I managed to fake my way through as a grad student.
I have also always thought of myself as a gifted musician. My failure to grasp keyboard fundamentals was pretty traumatizing, and my unwillingness to practice made me feel slothful.
It was awful. Naturally, as soon as no one was looking, I gave up.
Years later, I was surprised to discover that there was actually a reason for my low aptitude for piano and discomfort with practicing it. After reading Norman Doidge's wonderful book The Brain that Changes Itself and spending many years observing my students' motor learning processes, it dawned on me: I can't play piano because I can't separate my hands.
From the time I was about six years old, I spent hours every single day playing first the recorder, then the clarinet. That's literally thousands of hours teaching my hands, all ten fingers, to work together seamlessly to continuously change pitches and create a single melodic line. Thousands of hours carving out neural maps in my brain that say where music-making is concerned, these two hands function as one unit with a single purpose.
Playing keyboard usually means doing at least one thing with your left hand while you're doing at least one other thing with your right. By the time I attempted to learn, I had been a wind player for some 12 years. This made absolutely no sense to my poor brain.
This doesn't mean that I can't learn to play the keyboard. What it means is that to be successful, I must respect the dramatically different process I am asking my hands and brain to engage. It also means being very kind and patient with myself instead of accusing myself of being slothful and stupid.
This is why I love Rock Band 3!
The training levels and learning curve are designed for someone who has no musical training whatsoever, so the game asks far less of me than my piano teachers who, based on my overall musicianship skills, assumed I'd be able to tear through Bach inventions and preludes within a few short weeks. The songs are fun to play, I get congratulatory messages whenever I improve a tiny bit, and I can ask friends to join in on guitar and bass.
I've been working with the keyboard controller for about a month now. I can play chords! I can play without looking at my hands! I can get through almost all of the songs on the Expert Level setting! And while the game unfortunately doesn't use traditional score notation or demand that I separate my hands as much as I'd like, it is definitely helping to retrain my hands and my brain.
Now when I sit down at my baby grand – yes, the one I've had in my studio for 17 years without being able to play it! – I'm starting to be able to play through some simple accompaniments without holding my breath or freaking out.
True, we didn't have Rock Band 3 for the Xbox back when I was an undergraduate. My point is that this is a skill I could have mastered if I had had instructors who were able to discern the reason I was struggling, paced my instruction accordingly, and given me the support and encouragement that my game console lavishes on me whenever I figure out something new.
As helpful as keyboard skills may be, they are not essential for a singing career. But I know plenty of gifted, passionate singers whose education and/or careers have been derailed because they could not grasp certain other "secondary" skills. Reading music. Keeping to a regular practice regimen. Memorizing roles. Acting. Movement. Overcoming stage fright. Basic administrative stuff.
If you want be a successful singer, you eventually must master some things that don't come as easily to you as singing.
You already know what you're good at. You know what you love about singing and performing.
Take a moment to consider the things you think you're bad at and the things you hate.
If you can accept that these things are challenging for you and figure out why they do not come to you so easily, you will find a way to build skill at an appropriate pace. You may even find a way to make them fun. And then you'll gradually hate them less and less.
Anyway, for all of you now suffering through keyboard studies, I highly recommend that you pick up a copy of Rock Band 3!
Comments