Who knows what goes on in a young person’s head when they are dreaming about performing?
That hairbrush becomes a microphone and the adoring audience is out there somewhere and you’re seeing your moves in the mirror. But of course, it’s only your bedroom, there is no audience and you might be singing and moving off-key. But who cares – it’s fun to dream you are performing to a sell-out Wembley Stadium. Why shouldn’t our imagination run away with us and imagine what if…..?
If we can imagine it then we can make it happen. We soon learn that many other people out there have the same dream but if that doesn’t put you off then what’s wrong with having dreams?
Back on planet Earth if you are serious about performing and want to learn how to do it then it’s about what’s inside your head. When you join theatre classes and start work on a show you discover that you have material to learn. It won’t learn itself – you have to make an effort and it’s not always based on your favourite songs. You may have to work with material that you don’t even like or it may be different to the original. Then things get more serious and you come to a crossroads.
Do you stay with songs you already know and copy the original? That road leads to Karaoke. Nothing wrong with that, it’s about having fun and showing off your voice (and enduring others who aren’t quite on it) but the downside is you’ll only ever be a copy of someone else.
On the other hand, you learn the business of singing and performing from the bottom up. That means doing a bit every day, gradually putting in the work until you can master the skills of breathing, making a strong, supported sound and telling a story with feeling.
To be truly great at anything it takes you about 10, 000 hours of working at it. That could be plastering, taxi driving, playing the piano, or swimming. Whatever it is you have to work at it and keep going when it’s not so exciting. It’s hard to learn the songs you don’t like but it still has to be done. You are dealing with yourself and your prejudices. Somehow you have to become interested in things that you blocked out or rejected.
The payoff is that all those hours spent perfecting what you do give you a technique – a way of working that sustains you. It also makes you more interesting because you have to battle with yourself. Some people give up easily. They make excuses but often they don’t want to put in the hard graft – they lack stickability.
I was once asked to play a piece for the whole school. I wasn’t ready and it was a disaster, the notes went wrong, I was out of tune and I somehow stumbled through it. Red-faced and embarrassed I could have given up but I didn’t. I used it to drive me on and I stuck at it. I’m still not a great French horn player (I never did the 10,000 hours) but I learnt to become passable and I found other things that I wanted to focus on more.
So dreams collide with reality but it comes down to you and how you learn to deal with yourself. I’d say that’s a big learning.
