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YOUR
REAL VOICE - the vocal ezine for real people
September 19, 2005 #11
FEATURE EDITORIAL
What Makes
a Great Musician?
I'm back in the office after taking a weekend off to celebrate my
birthday! Since I actually had the brain space to listen to the
radio and think about something other than stuff I have to do, I was
delighted to hear that last Friday (the day before my birthday) was BB
King's 80th birthday. You may be asking how this pertains to your
singing. Here's how: last week, I received an interesting
reader question that got me thinking when I heard the radio interview
with BB King. The great reader question is "do I just have to
keep practicing and keep believing?" My answer is YES, but in
thinking about BB King and his sixty-year career, I thought of a much
better answer to give all of you. For those of you that may not
have heard his music, BB King is an outstanding stage performer, a
consummate artist and an absolute master musician. He has been
that way for years. It would be easy to say that anyone who's
been playing for 75 years would be great, but that is not necessarily
the case. BB King got great because he played all the time!
He NEVER stops working at his craft. In his career he has done
over 20,000 stage performances. If anybody has an excuse to get
lazy at
this point, he does. But he doesn't! His greatness
doesn't come from being "gifted," his greatness comes from his
perseverance and commitment. I often hear people comment that an
artist has "just got it" in terms of talent and ability, as though
there is some special super-human magic powers that person has.
What hooey! Ask any well-trained performing musician about
where they got the "it" that makes them able to do what they do.
We know there's no true "magic" other than time spent in the practice
room!
I learned that lesson from my first voice teacher, Shirley. She
was also the first voice teacher of world-renowned
opera singer, Susanne Mentzer. Shirley would tell her students
all the time how
hard the Ms. Mentzer worked on her voice, even though she was
already a great singer. That didn't matter! What mattered
was how much care and effort the "gifted" student was willing to devote
to perfecting her singing so that she could actually do something with
it on stage. I also taught a student who now has a platinum CD
and a number-one hit. What impressed me more about her than her
voice was that every week she showed up for her voice lesson
well-prepared, having done everything I assigned her. She still
worked extremely hard at improving her voice, despite the fact that she
was in the process of getting a record deal while I was her
teacher. She was a professional performer getting great critical
reviews in newspapers, yet she still practiced all the time and worked
constantly on her singing!
So, do you have to "just keep practicing and keep believing?"
YES! The question for you to answer for yourself is how good do
you want to be? If you want to be great, study singing for your
whole life and never stop. My guess is if you truly love singing,
your going to do it for life anyway! You may as well aim for
being as great as you can. Count your achievements, not the hours
spent in the practice room.
YOUR
REAL VOICE is the best vocal e-zine for real people! It is a
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Contact Athena by e-mail at info@sing-in-
tune.com
or learn how to sing
perfectly in tune at her web site at www.Sing-In-Tune.com
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