Tonight was the last four and half hours of our voice juries at Carthage – which usually happen during final exams at the very end of the semester, but due to an anomaly in the calendar we decided to try it this way. . . and one thing we did in deference to the weird timing of juries was basically to encourage all of the singers to just let me play for their juries, but with the understanding that I would not be rehearsing with anyone beforehand but would simply be winging it. . . which is basically what happens whenever you go out into the world and sing an audition for something. Typically there is an accompanist provided and the only “rehearsal” that occurs is the five seconds you take to maybe tap out the tempo for them or to point out any weird page turns or repeats. And then you just go and you hope for the best. It’s less than ideal but it also forces you to be as prepared as possible. But for me, it’s a stressful outing because – except for my own students – I am sight-reading for four hours straight and hoping, in the words of Hippocrates, to do no harm and (it is to be hoped) do some good.
One of the weirdest things about the experience is the wide range of music I end up playing . . . At 7:00 I might be playing some intricate Handel aria like “O had I Jubal’s Lyre” and then at 7:10 it’s “My Heart Belongs to Daddy.” And you would be wrong if you surmised that the musical theater stuff is easier than the classical stuff – it all feels tough when a young singer’s jury is hanging in the balance.
Fortunately, just about everyone did a very fine job- and in several cases, some of our singers rose spectacularly to the occasion. In fact, a couple of my guys were treated to bear hugs from me that probably felt like I was trying to do a chiropractic adjustment on them – but I can’t help it when a student exceeds not only my highest expectations- but even my hopes. That happened several times tonight. . . once with an upperclassman who always does well but who sang better than I have ever heard him sing – and again with an underclassmen who has struggled in almost every respect but who somehow managed to pull together a performance that I frankly did not think was possible. It’s funny when that happens because if this were a math exam, you would think that the guy had cheated…. but this isn’t like that at all, and thank goodness! Cheating is not an option. You stand up there and sing and there’s no question whatsoever about whose work is being heard, unless someone has hired a ventriloquist to lend their talents to the proceedings. And when someone reaches deep inside themselves for new levels of excellence, it’s time for the party hats.
Of course, it wouldn’t be juries if there wasn’t the opposite scenario as well – and I can think of several of my guys who have not worked very hard all semester and whose jury was ample evidence of that . . . and what’s especially frustrating about that is that every one of them is really gifted, and the unfulfilled potential that represents is so frustrating. Of course, my own voice study at Luther was hampered by my lack of focus and commitment- or the fact that I worked on my singing only in fits and starts and not with the methodical discipline that would have yielded even richer results. (Of course, I wouldn’t have won first place in NATS three years in a row if I was nothing but a lazy bum, but I still ask myself sometimes how much better I might have been if I had been in the practice room every day, without fail.) So my frustration with my lazier or more distracted students is tempered by the realization that I didn’t always make the best choices myself when it came to Practice Room vs. TV or Practice Room vs. Mabe’s Pizza or Practice Room vs. Long Talk with a Friend. And truth be told, if there had been such a thing as the internet back in the stone age when I went to college, I would have been in the practice room a tenth as much as I was. . . in which case I would have been lucky to win even Mr. Congeniality at NATS. So I guess I’m glad I came along when computers were as big as refrigerators and the only people who touched them were geeky computer science majors and the rest of us had to entertain ourselves in other ways – which once in awhile even included practicing!
Anyway, our juries tonight were the proverbial mixed bag – which is as it should be, since that’s who are students are: a mix of incredibly bright and mature young adults with students who seem not have left high school behind – or is it junior high? – – – and everything in between. And because of that fascinating mix (which fortunately was more heavily weighted in the former versus the latter) my four hours on the piano bench tonight were far from boring . . . and if my posterior was in pain by the end of it, the rest of me was feeling deep satisfaction that I get to spend so much of my life helping students to sing better. And wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles, some of them actually manage to do so.