Below are the 8 most recent journal entries recorded in mypettoaster's LiveJournal:

Wednesday, November 23rd, 2005
7:57 pm	Why, Art?? WHY???! Well, I tried the autobiographical approach, and it didn’t work too well. It seems as though there’s always either not enough to say or there’s too much, and in either case it’s hard to know where to start. Basta. Time for everyone else to entertain ME. Please read the below and respond. I like lively exchanges, so if someone posts something you don’t agree on, call them on it. Likewise, if someone disagrees with you, no crying. Defend your position, and let’s have some intelligent discourse. May the games begin! ... Now that I am a newly minted college graduate, I can’t help but look around at my friends and colleagues and the directions that their lives are taking, and wonder whether I have made the right choice with mine. Friends of mine are at medical school, learning to be doctors so that they can save lives, or at law school learning to be lawyers so that they can defend the innocent. I am trying to get into music school so that I can...what, exactly? Spend my years on earth doing something that I find amusing and fulfilling without ever having to think too hard about it? Of course, the more I consider this, the more it seems like an awfully selfish way to spend a human life, and clearly I don’t like that, so the goal has become to identify what it is that makes art important and necessary. Granted, I’ve undertaken this investigation for all the wrong reasons. I have a foregone conclusion: my life will be spent musically; so now I want everyone to help me supply the logic for it. Why is it important that artists do what we do? And not just that, but why is it important enough to do it professionally, rather than as a skilled amateur or hobbyist? Do we add that much more of whatever it is we add by doing this for a living? If you are still in school and have heard everyone tell you how hard it is to continue making music in the real world, you probably were like me and smiled and nodded and thought “Yes, I know all that”. Imagine my shock upon graduation when I suddenly found myself working two jobs, rehearsing for several shows at a time in different cities, applying to more graduate schools than I care to count, taking lessons far away from home, and still trying to fit in practice time every day. All of the sudden I was thinking “Hey! This is HARD!! Why didn’t anyone warn me??”. So please, everyone, do me a favor and give me reasons why it is important to do it. Not why it is desirable. Trust me, I’ve figured all those out on my own. But why does it matter to the rest of the world? Or doesn’t it? I’ll post my own thoughts on this soon. I just have to cook up some that are nice and controversial first... (11 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, February 22nd, 2005
9:46 pm	Disaster is Averted by a Large Yellow Citrus Fruit Yeah, what? I was busy. It strikes me that a full-blown narrative may not be the most efficient way to explicate the events of the past three months, so here's a fun timeline instead: November 17 - Sang at masterclass with head of opera program at UTK. Did not embarrass self. One happy point. November 18 - Caught bronchitis, became pneumonia. Many sad points. November 27 - Sang solos in Haydn Missa Brevis and Bach Cantata #140, still with pneumonia. Two sad points. November 30 - Recorded grad school screening CD, STILL with pneumonia. 15 sad points. December - Worked at Hydro. Points even. January 4 - Returned to Williamsburg to rehearse 12 hours a day for "Ruddigore". Believe it or not, many happy points. January 8 - Received rejection letter from UMD. Sad points beyond all measure. January 17 - Received rejection letter from Julliard, invitation to audition at Peabody. Points even. January 20-22 - Performed "Ruddigore". Many accolades. Many corresponding happy points. January 24 - Realized great ineptitude in eartraining and dictation. Pressured musical genius/martyr for hire into assisting self. Happy points. February 13 - Returned home to purchase suit for auditions. Many, very sad points. February 15 - Produced (& performed in) music benefit gala. Raised money. Six or seven happy points. February 17 - Attended last voice lesson before auditions and was torn to pieces by both teacher and coach, resulting in loss of confidence and many sad points. Or close enough, anyway. As I lack both the energy and the math skills to figure out whether I'm in the black or red in terms of happy points, I'll let my gentle readers decide. So, that leaves us with grad school, I guess. Considering the fact that failure would essentially be the end of the world, and my track record is already down to 50% at the best, I'm feeling about as well as can be expected. It's true that my voice teacher, spawn of Satan that she is, is doing everything to tear me down right when I need encouragement the most, but aforementioned genius/martyr is doing a reasonably decent job in repairing a lot of the damage. Besides which, a certain young friend of the ferrets has promised to wipe out the venomous creature, and for free! Looks like all my troubles will soon be over! So, just in case you've been living in a hole deep enough to have escaped my panicked cries of abject terror for the last few weeks, here's my audition schedule in all its glory: February 25: Peabody March 4: University of Tennessee, Knoxville. (Look brief? Well, you try to get admitted to music school as a liberal arts undergrad. Good luck, in that sardonic kind of way which is meant to imply that I really hope that you'll fail as miserably as I have thus far, because otherwise I would look like a complete and utter tool, while you would appear to be by far the more talented of us two, and I think we all know that that's not the case. That's right. I went there.) Interestingly enough, when I applied to UTK, I really had no idea where it was. Imagine my shock, therefore, when I discovered that Tennessee is not only not on the East Coast, but it doesn't actually touch any water at all, anywhere! I swear, they must have switched it with South Carolina when no one was paying attention. Stupid middle states. Baltimore, on the other hand, is just as beautiful as ever. I know, because I visited it on my birthday. Not only does it have its very own harbor, but it's also got honest-to-goodness slums; a refreshing novelty after Williamsburg, whose slummiest areas probably consist of my four-year succession of dorm rooms. So, you ask, am I nervous about my impending auditions and interviews, and all the second-guessing, people-pleasing, overly-deliberated things that I will have to say and do? Not one bit, say I, because I have... (drum roll....please?....oh, come on!) a FRUIT! I don't mean to suggest that I'm bringing a gay man to my auditions. I know a lot of gay men. I like and respect probably more than half of them, which is about what you can expect from me on average. No, when I say a fruit, I mean it like the ovaries of a plant. The kind you can eat. Or draw a slightly-apprehensive-it's-not-that-I-don't-like-you-just-that-I-have-a-healthy-amount-of-nervous-trepidation face on, christen "Mr. P", and cherish for a lifetime. I mean, the choice is yours, obviously. Three guesses as to what I did. So, with my good-luck talisman in tow, I think I might do OK at these auditions. I mean, after all, who's going to turn away some poor young thing who's weeping and clutching a pommelo with a face drawn on it? You would have to be pure evil! And that, my friends, is why I'm going to be a rousing success. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, November 21st, 2004
4:01 pm	What! Afflicted? Dear Dr. Armstrong, Thank you for giving me the lovely gift of bronchitis. Perhaps you don't recall sending it my way? Well, remember your policy that insists that all sick students must continue to come to Choir even when they can't sing at all, if only to spread their horrible afflictions to everyone else? Well, I'm pretty sure that's how I picked up this awesome virus. You rule! And with less than a week to go before I have to record for graduate schools, your timing could not have been more perfect! There is one thing that is troubling me, though. I'm afraid that with all of your unnecessary rehearsals, I won't have enough time to myself to enjoy your gift. Please, dear Doctor, when I come to you with tears in my eyes begging to be excused from rehearsal, do not think it means that I don't enjoy your company. It is just that I want as much time as possible to enjoy your gift before its fleeting pleasures are gone, and I am back to a life of being rejected by every single school I apply to because my recording sucked ass. Fondest Regards, L.W. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 2nd, 2004
2:10 pm	Coming to Terms with Rejection, or, How to Make People Buy You Cookies This particular rant has taken a remarkably long time to rear its ugly head in my livejournal. Clearly it's been a relatively good year thus far. But let us not focus solely on the goodness of the world around us without ever delving into the self-indulgent realm of pessimism! Rejection is a topic that must be addressed, as it is a cornerstone of any performer's lifestyle, and a pretty major player in our collective psyche. Rejection for a performer is obviously bad. It is also obviously someone else's fault. Failure to recognize a performer's greatness may not do any visible harm to a casting director or their company, but you can rest assured that somewhere down the line, they will all be very, very sorry. They will probably even come crawling back to the performer that they rejected, only to be politely turned away at the door, as the performer has since gone on to do significant projects of a caliber that the poor casting director cannot even comprehend. On the rare occasions when the above scenario does not ultimately take place, the performer must take drastic and unprecedentedly mature action, and actually come to terms with their own faults as an artist. (Note that I use the word "faults" to refer to other performer's situations. My own technique is so universally accepted to be flawless that any rejection that I may encounter is entirely due to other people's stupidity. See above paragraph for details.) At any rate, this moment of self-realization often occurs only after considerable emotional and mental anguish, which can reveal itself in a myriad of interesting and psychologically damaging ways. Let us examine, then, several different methods by which performers deal with rejection. METHOD ONE: HYSTERICAL WEEPING As the title implies, method one involves hysterical weeping. Lots of it. Really, embarrassing amounts of it. The thing to remember about hysterical weepers is that many of them have experienced many rejections, the latest one just being one in a long string of people denying their essential worth. These are people who are facing severe self-doubt, and for very good reason. If you aren't going to ever get a decent gig in the area you want to be your profession, things look pretty bleak. Fortunately, hysterical weepers are usually the type who get over their disappointment quickly, and move on to more constructive coping mechanisms, such as analyzing and fixing their shortcomings. After all, hysterical weeping is pretty difficult to sustain for prolonged periods of time. Also, hysterical weepers are usually self-aware enough not to burden others with their emotional breakdowns, and thus most hysterical weeping is done behind closed doors, with no one the wiser. All things considered, this is not a bad method of coping. METHOD TWO: SELF-RIGHTEOUS ANGER More damaging to a performer's long-term career goals is the self-righteous, angry approach to coping with rejection. These are the people who go around with a chip on their shoulder for all the world to see, regretting bitterly and loudly the casting director's lack of taste and/or vision in not selecting them. If the audition takes place in a closed environment, such as a school or community production, the rejected performer will often attempt to cast aspersions on the person or persons who were selected by the casting director. These aspersions may include, but are certainly not limited to, the person's talent level, years of experience, vocal range, health, eating habits, physical appearance, sexual preferences, the likelihood of sexual favors being conferred, presence of body odors, and pretty much anything else you can think of. Performers are creative people. Self-righteously angry copers can be great fun to be around, but only if you are also coping with rejection. Otherwise, their negativity can be overwhelming, and you are likely to notice factual inconsistencies in their arguments. For example, if a certain young lady is cast in a show, she cannot be both utterly unattractive AND suspected of granting sexual favors to the director. If she truly were unattractive, the director clearly would not accept or value her sexual favors, thus placing her in the same position as the performer who was rejected in the first place. In all, this is not a very constructive method of coping. METHOD THREE: THE MARTYR APPROACH Martyrs are perhaps outwardly the most healthy copers, but upon closer examination, even a casual observer will notice the vast hypocrisy of their actions. Martyrs are the performers who, upon receiving news of their rejection, promptly offer up their services to assist with the production in another capacity, such as technical work or advertising. At first glance, these people seem to be completely selfless. Their concern is entirely for the good of the production, and they seem to move past their own rejection swiftly and easily. Guess again. Isn't it remarkable how these people so frequently volunteer the fact that they are working behind the scenes on a given production, especially in the presence of someone who was cast in it? That is because they want to see your jaw drop as you look back and forth between the two of them, and to hear your protestations that they surely should have been cast, as they are one of the finest performers around. These are the people who will sit backstage on dress rehearsal evenings with large eyes and downturned lips, reciting every bit of stage business as it is performed, knowing full well that they could step in for any of the performers, and wanting everyone around them to know, too. These people are essentially passive-aggressive. To ignore their game is to incur their everlasting disdain, but at least they have a large enough fear of confrontation never to let you know. METHOD FOUR: ACTUALLY NOT CARING This method is reserved for saints and true professionals, in other words, a segment of the performing population so small as to be virtually nonexistent. If your methods fall into this category, congratulations. You are a better person than I am, and I am sure you will make a lovely accountant, or whatever it is you want to be when you grow up. And there you have it; a comprehensive guide to the manners in which people deal with rejection. Handle it carefully, and it just might make you a better person. Blame it on someone else, and you'll be human like the rest of us. Rock on. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, October 18th, 2004
11:25 am	Craftsmanship, Art, and Why Sappy Things Embarrass Me I'm not apologizing. No good ever came of anyone apologizing to an inanimate object, and, come to think of it, I'm not sure that a livejournal is strictly speaking even an object. Since my last riveting entry, I've scheduled my senior recital, which is good to finally have done. Mighty Millie and I have agreed to record actually all five of the pieces I listed a few entries ago, and pick the best upon hearing them. Let the hotness ensue. I also sang a bunch of concerts with a bunch of different ensembles, which brings me kind of to a revelation, at least for people who don't pay attention. I'm incredibly bothered by public displays of emotion, especially in musical contexts. In choral groups, there are always a few people who are guilty of either under or over-emoting. Under-emoting is, I guess, the lesser of the two evils. Under-emoters just kind of stand there and sing, rather expressionlessly, with varying degrees of technical perfection. Occasionally under-emoters are technically perfect, in which case you tend to cut them a little more slack. More offensive to me are the over-emoters of the choral world. For someone who finds public displays of emotion embarrassing (I do), watching and/or singing with these people is rather torturous. I find their gestures and eye-closing and general sappiness incredibly self-indulgent, especially on an amateur level. It's like when those acoustic guitar/nouveau folk singers (think girls with guitars) try to be expressive when they really can't sing or only know about three chords on their guitar. It's not about expressiveness at that point, people. It's about learning what the hell you're doing. In general, I think the connection between craftsmanship and art is increasingly ignored in popular culture. People who are willing to look melencholy and whine or people who do that horrible closed-eye singing are rewarded by not being held to any kind of technical standard. Apparently, we're supposed to forgive them for sucking because they're emoting. Sorry, but you lose. What ever happened to the glory days of opera, wherein you'd better know your craft inside and out before you went around trying to "express yourself"? This is not really that subjective of a standard. There is well-honed technique, and there is poor technique, and I think the difference is pretty obvious to anyone who cares to pay attention. Consider jazz musicians, since, as they say, jazz probably is America's true classical music. Can you imagine a jazzman walking into a jam session to play without some knowledge of the conventions of progressions and repetition and improvisation? What if he just sat down and closed his eyes, sans any kind of technical expertise, and "let it flow", as it were? Probably the other musicians would all get up and leave. Craftsmanship must precede art in my estimation, otherwise all singers would be folk singers, all actors would be overly-earnest high schoolers, all paintings would be of bleeding rose petals, and all dance would either stay in the hip-grinding realm, or else end with a swan collapsing with a "pity-me" expression on its face. Expression is important, yes, but it cannot precede technical expertise, or the result is embarrassing to watch. This is the difference between Callas or Sills singing an aria expressively, and a high school or college-aged voice student singing it "expressively". Dramatics must never be a crutch for lack of craft. I give you the practice rooms. There is also the manner in which people are expressive that I sometimes find objectionable. You may have gathered by now that eye-closing is a pet peeve of mine. Let me try to articulate why. I think I feel as though eye-closing is not a true sign of expressiveness as much as it is a telegraphing of expressiveness. When you sing an aria or art song, I think it is important to examine the piece to determine the character and the context. It's not enough to know that your French melodie is a love song, and to impose your own experiences on it without determining a clear characterization. That's just you being spastic and embarrassing. I think that as a singer, it is important to know that the music isn't really ever about you, at least not unless you happen to be a household name and ridiculously famous. Say I'm singing Musetta in La Boheme. People will pay money to see Musetta be coquettish and raunchy, so for the duration of the show, I'd better be Musetta and do what she would do. Say I close my eyes and begin to sway slightly during "Quando M'en Vo" because I happened to hit a pretty slow part and I want to be expressive. I would have not only destroyed the credibility of my character, but also alienated my audience, who expected to see Musetta on stage, and not me. I guess that I don't feel that choral music or art song is fundamentally any different. People come to see a characterization of an emotion, not a realization of it, especially not a super-imposed one. It feels disingenuous to me to allow experiences and emotions to color a piece that the character of the piece does not suggest. And no, no piece suggests that you close your eyes. Unless you count folk music. (21 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, October 3rd, 2004
9:53 pm	Vocal Technique, or, How to Fill Your Life with Ambiguity and Frustration I did not forget to update my livejournal, thank you. I was having a bad music day, and it did the unthinkable and grew into a bad music week. I guess you could say things began going downhill last Wednesday during my voice lesson. I've been taking voice for the last seven years, with a succession of four different teachers of varying talent and expertise. During that time, I've had many people ask me what exactly people teach you in voice lessons, anyway. Doesn't it just come out when you open your mouth? In an effort to save time and emotional anguish, I usually just smile and shrug. Generally this ends the conversation, since very few people actually care what happens in a voice lesson. Obviously if they really wanted to know, they'd take one for themselves. But since I have unlimited space in this journal to describe in painstaking detail every minutia of my life, I will endeavor to elaborate on this subject for you, Gentle Reader. Voice teachers are primarily interested in imparting vocal technique. Actually, no. Voice teachers are primarily interested in self-indulgent tirades about their own thwarted dreams and ambitions, but that's for another post. For now, let's pretend that voice teachers just want to teach you. OK, so what is vocal technique, anyway? Well, that's a little harder to describe. It all starts out perfectly innocently, with a teacher telling you how to stand and explaining that you need to breathe deeply into your back and sides, but before you know it, you're being asked to imagine the effect of a watermelon being shoved forcibly up your anus, and to sing accordingly. (You think I'm exaggerating, don't you?) The leap from the reasonable, common-sense practices of good singing to the increasingly absurd "organic-imagery" school of thought is the result of a simple, yet pervasive fact. No one actually knows how to teach good singing. The fact of the matter is that experienced singers can tell when you're singing well, and they can try to explain what makes you good, but most of it is completely of their own invention. Example: My first teacher is one of the finest vocalists it has been my pleasure to work with. She taught me for three years, and always cautioned me against using something called "mask resonance". (For the uninitiated, "mask" refers to the inner portions of the front of your face; think nose and frontal cheek region. "Mask resonance" is the act of consciously placing your sound there. No, you're right. It doesn't make much sense.) My teacher disagreed with the concept of manipulating your resonance to where it does not naturally go. She always told me never to "artificially brighten" my sound, meaning not to go around shoving it into my nose if it really wanted to bounce around the inside of my head. Fair enough. So one day she was singing a solo concert at the National Gallery in DC, which is something people do from time to time, and after taking her final curtain call, she ran into another voice teacher acquaintance backstage. Her friend greeted her and complimented her performance enthusiastically, saying "I just love your technique! I tell all of my students to use you as an example of the perfect mask resonance!" And that, dear friends, is why vocal technique is completely ridiculous. At this point, you may be asking "Why bother?" It's true, a lot of vocal technique doesn't make any sense, and the parts that do make sense are probably intuitive anyway, but there are reasons why we pay people extravagant sums of money to teach it to us. You see, every once in a while, if you have a really wonderful teacher, something will hit home with you. Suppose it's pretending there is a megaphone lodged in your lower back. (No, I'm serious. This is an actual image I've been given before.) You think about the megaphone. You feel the megaphone. You intuit the megaphone. You become the megaphone. You walk around campus imagining yourself as a giant megaphone. Then, all of the sudden, you realize that your teacher could have just told you to expand your back when you inhale, and it would have taken a lot less time and made a lot more sense. But in the end, you get the point. And maybe, just maybe, it will make you slightly quicker on the uptake the next time someone throws something completely random your way. Trust me on this one. Famous mezzo-soprano Dolores Ziegler once told me that I have a gift for interpreting images and incorporating them into my technique. Clearly I should write a book. P.S. I have, once upon a time, been told to sing as though I am defecating. This, along with singing exercises on the syllable "wee", is probably my greatest joy in life. (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, September 28th, 2004
9:19 pm	Millie the Mighty My accompanist is going to kick my ass. I'm not quite sure whether that's supposed to happen, or whether this is something akin to a Bertie & Jeeves relationship, but it's pretty clear that she is going to work me to death, regardless of the fact that I'm the one employing her. Interesting. Millie is a small, wrinkled old lady with a spirit of iron. She worked in a European opera house for years as a coach/accompanist, which I suppose taught her exactly how expendible sopranos like me really are. Tonight we worked on the five pieces I am considering for my screening CD. Only four will make the final cut. Which will they be??? Well, here's the list, as it were: "O Quand Je Dors" : French art song, or, if you're snobby, "melodie" (may-low-DEE). Characteristically sappy French art song with characteristically wispy French accompaniment. Mais oui! "Standchen" (Strauss) : Not the Standchen you're thinking of. That's the Schubert one. Very fast, very spastic, and there's not really anywhere to breathe. Sehr heiss. "Piangero la sorte mia" (Handel's Julius Caesar) : Cleopatra is pissed, and she wants you to know it. She's also sad, but no one really pays attention to that part, since it doesn't have any melismas in it. NEXT! "So anchio la virtu magica" (Donizetti's Don Pasquale) : Norina is reading a trashy romance novel out loud, and can't resist adding her own nasty little spin. Quite frankly, you lost us at the cavatina, kid. Right. "The Letter Aria" (Moore's The Ballad of Baby Doe) : Hey! She's singing an aria in English! Check it out guys! This one's in English! No one knows what the hell a Baby Doe is, but who cares! We can understand the words! Stay tuned to find out which of these four will make the big time, and which will be scorned and derided, to live in eternal infamy at the very back of my repetoire binder! (1 Comment |Comment on this)
2:14 pm	A Shining New Era Weird. Well, here goes... So grad school applications are due the first of December, and I'm pretty sure my life is going to go down in flames shortly afterwards. For those of you who don't know, it is my lifelong dream to be a famous or at least moderately reputable opera singer. Here's why. REASONS TO BE AN OPERA SINGER: -you get paid lots of money -you get to sing really pretty music -you get to travel all over the world -people throw you huge parties everywhere you go -literati, diplomats, and royalty all consider it an honor to know you -you get pretty dresses. lots of them. -you only really have to perform a couple of days a week. -at the end, you get to write your memoirs All things considered, not a bad career goal. Anyway, the path to becoming an opera singer is a difficult and ever-changing one. Back in the day, you could just sing for a teacher, and, provided they loved your voice and had the appropriate connections, they could say "Brilliant! We will make you a star!" (any European accent applicable). Sadly, nowadays people have to spend tons of money going to school to study opera. Normal debuting age in professional opera is 26 or 27. That's like 2 Master's degrees and a Performer's Certificate worth of expensive education in between college and career. Awesome. So here begins the documentation of my struggle to get accepted into my first graduate program. I'm only applying to three schools right now, which is stupid. I'll work on that. That said, here's the list: PEABODY INSTITUTE IN BALTIMORE: where I would walk among giants and attend classes with the Great Musicians of my generation. UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND, COLLEGE PARK: where I would be taught by giants, some of whom were the Great Musicians of the previous generation. JULLIARD SCHOOL, NEW YORK: where I would be spit upon by giants and told exactly why I will never be one of the Great Musicians of my generation. At any rate, the application process for these schools is arduous and expensive. I'm in the process of putting together my screening CD, which I will send along with my written application and a large fee in early December. If the schools like the CD, they will invite me to attend a live audition, and to pay another large fee, along with travel expenses. If they like me after that, I'm in. No sweat! For now, I'm concentrating on the initial CD. Tonight I will meet my accompanist for the first time, and we will determine exactly how large HER fee will be. Later this week I will book a recital hall and recording equipment, both of which will involve, you guessed it, a large fee. And this is why artists starve... Don't worry, intrepid readers who have made it this far, I will inform you of how the practice session with Madame Accompanist goes tonight. More of this anon! (Comment on this)