Happy New Year, singers! How did you celebrate the dawn of a new decade? I was fighting off a cold, so I spent my New Year’s Eve at home with the humidifier running. My activities included some inspiration and some guilty pleasure: I revisited Free Solo, the 2018 Academy Award winner for Best Documentary, and I played some Rock Band 3 on the Xbox.
Free Solo follows climber Alex Honnold as he prepares for and attempts a free solo climb of El Capitan, a spectacular 3000-foot granite wall in Yosemite National Park. A “free solo” is a climb undertaken alone, without ropes or other safety equipment. Free soloing is an extremely high-consequence endeavor, as any mistake or miscalculation will likely be fatal. It therefore demands utter mastery, meticulous preparation, and superb mental focus. This is why I find Alex Honnold and this film so deeply inspiring.
Performing an opera role brilliantly demands a similarly impeccable level of mastery, preparation and focus. As I watched Honnold train for the climb, map out his route, and practice the intricate sequence of movements that would get him to the summit of El Cap, I considered the similarities and differences between his process and the way a singer prepares to perform. The fundamental requirements for mastering any discipline are common to all. You need to understand how mastery is defined for a given pursuit. You need a means of cultivating the necessary strength, coordination, stamina and focus. You need a progression of challenges that align well with your current skill set. And you need a passion fierce enough to keep your curiosity and ambition stoked throughout the successes and setbacks you will experience along the way.
I often draw comparisons between athletic and vocal training, and as I considered Honnold’s process I noted a number of ways in which free solo climbing seems more conducive to achieving mastery than singing does. First, there is the inherently high-consequence nature: a climber who fails to prepare meticulously will fall to their death, whereas a singer will just give an unsatisfying performance. Honnold frequently points to the distinction between “high-consequence” and “high-risk”. All of his preparation is about minimizing risk – what he does may appear risky to the observer, but it doesn’t feel risky to him because by the time he attempts something he has become extremely confident in his ability to pull it off. The high-consequence nature of his sport just provides a very high level of motivation for minimizing risk. Second, achievements in singing are accomplished in public performance but when Honnold free solos he generally doesn’t tell anyone until afterwards – he doesn’t want them worrying, and he himself doesn’t want to be thinking about them worrying (that he agreed to be filmed for the documentary provided an added challenge). Honnold’s free solo achievements are personal triumphs that the rest of us can appreciate afterwards, with the only criterion being that he made it to the summit without dying. He is therefore unlikely to be distracted by a desire for critical validation or feel a need to seek permission to undertake a particular project, both which can feel like an impediment for singers. Third, like many athletic endeavors, the skills that define mastery in climbing and the means to achieve them have been objectively codified, and those who pursue mastery are relatively easy to evaluate, because what it comes down to is, did you make it to the summit or not? And if you didn’t, we can point to clear misjudgments or faulty movements that account for it. While such objective criteria can seem elusive for singers, I nevertheless believe that it is possible and desirable to define mastery and develop good means for tracking progress.
In the Technique chapter of A Singer’s Audition & Career Handbook, I shared how I didn’t even begin to understand what technique meant until I was on the verge of completing my masters degree. I started noticing how easy it is for singers to believe that the reason they can’t do something is due to insurmountable flaws in their instrument or a lack of aptitude. I saw that rather than viewing mastery as an attainable goal with a clear path marked by well-defined benchmarks, singers generally expect to just keep chipping away in whatever way seems to make sense, for an indeterminate period of years, and hope that someday they will get there, although they may not really know where “there” even is, as it is not as obvious as the summit of a mountain. I would argue that the pursuit of mastery depends upon a strong sense of agency – a determination to succeed and the belief in your ability to do so. When so much seems to depend upon talent and luck, it is very hard to feel as though you have any agency; when you feel you have no agency, it is hard to keep your passion alive. However, if you zoom out and consider how most requirements for mastering any discipline are common to all, the path to excellence in singing becomes clearer. You can define for yourself what mastery means for your craft. You can devise a means of cultivating the strength, coordination, stamina and focus you need, while refusing to believe that you have any insurmountable flaws standing in your way. You take on a progression of challenges that align well with your current skill set. You accept that you will encounter both successes setbacks along the way, and you keep your passion alive.
There’s no one weird trick or quick fix for getting to the top of a mountain. Either you have the strength, skill and stamina or you don’t, and the mountain will kick your ass. Either you fully execute your preparation so you know exactly what route you’re going to take, where every foot placement and handhold will be, or you don’t, and there will be consequences. Singing an opera role is quite similar. Either you have the strength, skill and stamina or you don’t, in which case you’ll push, strain, and possibly wipe out in the middle of the performance. Either you fully execute your preparation so you know exactly what your character’s thought process and dramatic arc is, you’ve choreographed all of your breaths and the internal movements required for every phrase, or you don’t, in which case your performance will be at best perfunctory and at worst a train wreck. You won’t die, but you’ll turn in a mediocre performance rather than a masterful one, which is a consequence in and of itself.
So I invite you to consider what your personal equivalent of free soloing El Capitan would be, how you might define mastery for yourself, and then make a plan to achieve it. Pick a role that would demand utter excellence from you and chart your course towards a stellar performance. If you’re a dramatic coloratura who dreams of singing Donizetti’s Lucia, what will you have to become capable of in order to do it? What are the technical, musical and dramatic requirements of the role, and what exercises and additional repertoire will help you to meet them? What are some benchmarks you can refer to along the way so you’ll know you’re on track to be able to confidently execute the coloratura and navigate the wide vocal range with panache?
The idea of mastering an opera role admittedly offers a stark contrast with the way I spent the other part of my New Year’s Eve. I was playing Rock Band 3 on the Xbox. I have this two-octave piano keyboard controller that I use to play a bunch of pop tunes from the 80s and 90s, usually quite badly. I enjoy playing along with songs I like. I enjoy feeling my brain laying down new neural maps in response to the hilariously awful notation, which bears no resemblance to an actual musical score. For me, RB3 is a reminder that music can fun and that I don’t have to be aiming at mastery to enjoy it. It’s about as low-consequence an activity as I can imagine.
It's important to remember that music can be satisfying on many levels. You can take on the great opera roles that suit your voice, or you can just enjoy jamming out with a volunteer choir or at the karaoke bar. The same is true of rock climbing: you can aspire to free solo a 3000-foot granite wall, or you can rope up at your local climbing gym. But here’s the thing: If you want to become a great artist or an elite climber, you have to commit to mastery, and true mastery is rare. And while I believe that mastery requires a deeply personal passion and ambition, when you attain mastery people will notice. If you free solo El Capitan, people will notice. If you can sing the hell out of Lucia, people will notice. If you become capable of performing a role like that with committed expression, stellar technique and musicianship, and dramatic intensity, people will notice – and more importantly, you will know that you are capable of it. When you walk around knowing that you can sing the hell out of Lucia, your bearing will be different. The way you talk to industry professionals and seek performance opportunities will be different. Your whole perspective on the art form and the business will be different.
I’m not suggesting that you can learn to sing Lucia in a vacuum. What I am saying is that when you are intent on mastery, the way you pursue educational and performance opportunities is very different from the way you otherwise might. You will expect excellence and respect from your mentors and colleagues. You will pursue a structured approach. You will set goals and track benchmarks. Your relationship to fear will evolve – as Honnold puts it, ’’You will always feel fear, but over time you will realize the only way to truly manage your fear is to broaden your comfort zone.’’ You will also maintain higher standards for yourself than those that anyone else could impose upon you. While you will continue to seek insight and feedback whenever you can, you won’t seek anyone’s permission to pursue your path or crave anyone’s validation of your accomplishments.
Mountains can’t give you permission to climb them, or offer you validation once you reach the summit. They’re just there, silently inviting you to make the attempt, with the understanding that a high level of skill, confidence and determination will be necessary.
Happy New Year. Go find your El Capitan.
Free Solo is available to stream via Hulu and Amazon Prime.
Charting a course for vocal mastery? I can help structure your studies.
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