Life is too complicated for this tenor to keep things straight. I have been meandering through many muddy mental matters trying to work out how to clarify them all, and I am only becoming aware of the futility of my quest as the number of ideas competing for my attention becomes impossibly large. Even this tenor can now see that too much is just too much. I’ve got to put these thoughts in some sort of order, but even ordering them is beyond my ability….. So let’s forget order and try random access to my mind’s thought pool and put a few on the blog.
Wikipedia is one of my favorite catalysts, and I will blame it for today’s bit of clarity. I went there to get an idea of what the “High Minded” thought the words “Professional and Professionalism” mean.
What a fabulous monster I found. I have spent a lifetime using a word that now means the opposite of my understanding.
In my development as a singer, I was always aware of the bits of artistic genius that passed in front of me from my very advantageous position on the stage with some really wonderful singers. The artists from whom I stole the largest number of tools of the singing trade set a high bar for me to jump. I thought of the word “Professionalism” as being printed in large letters right in the middle of that bar. I did my best to organize what Renata Booth taught me and everything I lifted from the best of the professionals around me to bring my work on the stage as close to that (Professionalism) bar as I could, even if I might have failed, in my own eyes, to attain-to it. Click here to see the lowest point I can think of for setting that bar.
Wikipedia has dug a trench for that bar.
“qualified professionals are less creative and diverse in their opinions and habits than non-professionals,”
Modern Professional Creativity
I did a little criticism of this attitude of “mediocre is like so happening” in “Soup and Sandwich” and wish I were able to leave it alone with that single blog, but the cloud of witnesses against my point of view is too dense to let me walk away from the subject. As I kept my eye on Ann Midget after my blog “So Why Should Anyone Belt?”, I ran across her husband, Greg Sandow. I guess he could be labeled a professional consultant, even within the limits of the definition of “Professional” that the professional thinkers and writers at Wikipedia are keen on selling. I subscribed to Greg’s blog, and he recently kicked the hornet nest of thoughts that trouble my tenor brain with the gem:
“Better to aim low, I might think, and plan small, practical steps, and then be surprised when things take off. Better that than to start off expecting big things, and then fall on your face when they don’t happen quickly.”
http://www.artsjournal.com/sandow/2013/10/from-liza-figueroa-kravinsky-you-scratch-my-back.html
Perhaps we could call Greg a professional “inhibition consultant”.
I could live with the above advice if we were talking about a bicycle I may buy for nearly nothing at a garage sale, or walking out my front door intending to burn up a few calories jogging during an ice storm that “Climate Change” is supposed to eliminate for us Rock Eaters of the far North. It is a long way from the philosophy I followed when I first thought to become a “professional singer”, and I believe I shared that “Reach for the stars” attitude with my colleagues who became successful professionals. Just because a few inevitably disappointed individuals shared this “Devil may care” manner of pursuing the profession does not make INHIBITION a better policy for all aspirants to professional status. Especially when the majority of the disappointed from among my generation were actually following Mr. Sandow’s advice and had all the inhibition he might think they needed.
Wikipedia serves well to bring into focus the thinking of the chattering class, and Mr. Sandow’s profession would seem to make him a chattering charter member. His advice for professionals to go “low ball” in their expectations would seem to fit right in with Wikipedia’s “low ball” estimation of the creativity a “Professional” can be expected to possess. Both these opinions fit together very well with Karen Sell’s attitude that interpretation/“artistry” is by nature innate and un-teachable. (See “Soup and Sandwich”). Since professionals are supposed to lose the ability to be creative through the very education process Wikipedia asserts as necessary for attaining to “Professionalism”, and Karen Sell believes creativity is ultimately un-teachable it would seem logical that Mr. Sandow would advise low expectations for any effort a “Professional Artist” may make in “creating” a career. What is education for, anyway?
My last bash at this subject will be to reiterate my opinions contained in my blog “Barcelona and Friends”. The people with whom I collaborated in Barcelona, mostly from Mr. Sandow’s chattering class, seemed to agree with Mr. Sandow’s opinion that a “low aim” is better than a big disappointment. As we gathered to see and hear young people show their desire to be, preparation for and accomplishment of “Professional”, the largest vocal gifts, the biggest and riskiest bets, were eliminated early. The less gifted and more “Professional”, according to Wikipedia and effectively the least impressive, were promoted to the final. Those “Wikipedia Professional” artistic organizers voted their agreement with Mr. Sandow, and guaranteed my ultimate boredom in that magnificent theatre: Liçeu. Those Viñas participants who have the greatest likelihood to attain to my definition of “Professional Singer” were just too “iffy” in the eyes and ears of the supporters of the status quo. I wish those Wikipedia favored youngsters well, but I believe they are part of the problem that troubles even Mr. Sandow. Click here to see the first blog that I was happy to receive from him after I subscribed. There are no coincidences.
Crisis is what it’s about.