Let Your Freak Flag FLY
I wrote this blog many years ago, maybe 2008? Since then, I have left the university doing things differently only labeled me as a “disrupter” in the university. I even wrote a book called The 21st-Century Singer: Making the Leap from the University into the World (Oxford, 2015) to help singers find their way out of their oppressive traditional training into meaningful singing careers. Though this book has been wildly successful, and resonated way beyond the university walls, the university itself was not amused. I’m reposting this rant, knowing it is a rant, and knowing that though I still feel it worthy of a quick read, many universities have stepped up and started offering more diverse repertoire, more entrepreneurship training including recording oneself and having a social media presence. More and more programs are offering community engagement as a way to get singers their hours of performing as they complete their training. It is a slow process, and the classical world is way behind, but they are trying. And Santosha Voice Group is here to help.
Here is the blog post from 2008 in its entirety.
Being an artist is a revolutionary act. Why do people sacrifice everything to overthrow an oppressive authority? For freedom! What is the oppressive authority for a singer? It is academic training. I have been a college music professor for twenty-seven years so I know. We music professors prescribe every action, thought, bit of expression and then judge the student harshly if he or she doesn’t conform to our way. We do that judging at the end of the semester singing exams called juries.
Professional opera company’s young artist training is no better. They teach the young talented singer how to get hired at their company. Managers publish guides and hold workshops on how to get into their good graces. All of these authorities demand the young singer to please them to ‘succeed’ in the business. “Where, oh where, is the authority that will let me be me? Or better yet, where is the authority that will tell me how to be me? Do I really need anyone’s permission to be me?
The world just brushes it off as the Starving Artist syndrome. Recently graduated singers bemoan the lack of training in the business of music, thinking that they should have been taught how to find a job after school is finished. Nope. The truth is that we, at the university, are all training singers to be handicapped. We take their self-esteem, their creativity, their individuality, and their inner voice and crush them or tear them down, so we can rebuild the perfect Stepford Singer from scratch. We are training pretty little puppets.
By the end of great academic training, the young singer might have a degree or two or three and probably you know lots of literature and lots of techniques. The singer knows the rules and is warned again and again not to break the rules. How is that not oppressive?
Desperately, the young talented soprano, the pretty puppet, dresses as she is told, sings the repertoire she is told to sing, follows all the rules and loses audition after audition. She is told by other authorities that she should just keep spending money and keep being rejected. Being rejected is the correct process; stay on track. One special magical day, she will be hired. Won’t that day be great? Until then, torture yourself by conforming completely to the standard and denying your inner voice, if you even have one.
Haven’t you had enough? Start a revolution. Break all the rules! Go for it. Let your freak flag fly.
That said, the revolution of purposeful singing in your community is real. The power of such a disruptive act is beyond belief.
