This Is a Spoon

Most of the people I’ve taught consider themselves, to a greater or lesser degree, singers.  

Most of the people I’ve taught do not consider themselves musicians.

How can this be?  If you are making music with an instrument or your voice, aren’t you by definition a musician? 

Many people would answer “yes”.  But most of my students don’t feel they’re musicians because they can’t read music.  They can’t speak the language of music.  So they’re not, by their own standards as it applies to them (important point) musicians.

This is a spoon.

When you were a baby someone put this in your hand and put the bowl of Baby Gruel in front of you and you made it work.  You weren’t graceful, but you got the thing to bring the food to your mouth (more or less). 

It was not, at that time, a spoon.  At that time is was shiny, smooth, cool, hard, loud when you banged it, exciting when you threw it, something to push things with, something that other things would fit in, something you could eat the stuff that slipped out of your hands with.  It didn’t have a name.  Somebody taught you the name of the thing while you were in the process of using it.  You didn’t remember the first time they told you.  You had to hear the word and see what it was applied to a number of times before it stuck.

It’s easy to color outside the lines if you don’t see them in the first place.

What my students are trying to say when they say they are not musicians is that they’re aware of their inability to speak Music in the vernacular of the language shared by musicians.  

Music, to them, is the spoon to the baby.  Is the spoon any less a spoon, or the baby any less a Spoon User because he can’t give the spoon a name?  Of course not.  And likewise, some of the best musicians in history have been uneducated, or “ear” musicians.  Some of your favorite songs have been written by musicians who would not call themselves musicians because they couldn’t speak the language of music.

Not being confined to the rules of the language can give a musician room to be innovative.  Irving Berlin, Ella Fitzgerald, Willie Nelson, and Kurt Cobain were all untrained musicians.  John Coltrane, arguably the most influential musician of the 20^th century, had only limited exposure to academic music training.  The thing about not knowing what a spoon is supposed to be is that you’re more likely to find amazing things it’s not supposed to be, but is. 

Back to our baby…

It’s easy to imagine that baby going right along using his spoon and nobody teaching him what it was called, or, when they tried to tell him he said, “I’m using it!  I don’t need to know what it’s called”!  As he continued to eat with other people, it would become increasingly embarrassing to have to ask for “the silver, shiny, smooth thing that can shovel food”.  In fact, a person like that might be inclined to avoid eating with other people who did know the names of all the dishware.  

And that’s sometimes what happens to musicians who don’t speak the language of music.  Not being able to speak the language of music to can limit them both in terms of how far they can go, or are interested in going, into music. It can also limit what music experience they’ll expose themselves to because, well, what if everyone else speaks the language and I look dumb?  What if they find out I’m not “real?”

Music or anything else.

I’m not advocating for musical illiteracy, don’t get me wrong.  

If you’re aware of feeling hampered by the lack of a particular body of knowledge, if you know deep down that you’d feel more confident in your abilities if you were to learn a thing or two about a particular discipline or language, if you’re defending your right to be ignorant at the expense of feeling “real,” then I think you should be honest with yourself.  

I’m advocating for you climbing your mountains, one at a time. 

I want you to begin to walk the path.  Because carrying around a feeling of being “less than” because of something that’s easy to fix just ain’t worth it.  Things you’re afraid of are never as scary once you really look at them.  Avoidance only compounds the fear. It’s just a spoon, in the end.  And if you’re able to embrace your own experience, and your experience is outside the prescribed path, then good for you.  Play them spoons with feeling!

Cheering Yourself On

Maia, my niece, is 10.  She’s a tall, beautiful, smart girl sees herself as a Tween.  Recently she added to this self-image with a very grown-up accomplishment.  She earned her Jr. Lifeguard Certificate.  When I say “earned it”, I mean it.   She and her classmates had to run 4K every day, swim for hours, and practice their just-learned lifesaving maneuvers.  Did I mention she’s 10?

A few days ago, fresh on the heels of this accomplishment, Maia and her family came to visit.  In the interest of recognizing her and having a reason to eat cake, I bought a cake and had “Congratulations Maia” written on the top.  Without much fanfare the two families decimated the cake like termites on a rotten log.  Before Maia went outside to play with the other kids she asked why the cake had the inscription it did.  When I told her it was in honor her Jr. Lifeguard accomplishment, she rolled her eyes, did the “aw shucks” hand gesture, and told me “it wasn’t anything” as she walked out the door.

This small thing has made a quietly simmering thought start to steam.

Often one of my voice students will have a breakthrough.  Their dedication will pay off and they will achieve a significant level of freedom with their voice.   Or they’ll master a skill.  Or they’ll just find that next step.  Sometimes these milestones unfold slowly over a number of weeks.  But sometimes they happen in a few minutes.  When that happens it’s very exciting to me, Meredith T. Voice Teacher. 

So here I am in the lesson.  Student has just achieved Milestone.  Teacher is jumping up and down about how great this event is.  Student smiles.  Student acknowledges being aware of the change.  But Student does not join Teacher in enthusiastic tail-wagging.  In fact, Student often tries to give all credit to Teacher.

Just as my niece did, this student has worked for and invested in this accomplishment, and then when the threshold that signifies that accomplishment is crossed, the student won’t claim this thing she’s earned.

Reflected in their experience, I see that I do the same thing, and have done my entire life.

I don’t know when or why I learned not to measure or claim my accomplishments.  I don’t know why it’s such a pervasive thing.  As a teacher I’ve long been aware of it in my students, and I’ve been troubled over my students’ frequent inability to claim their successes.  But in order to get a handle on the damage caused by this hole in the psyche I had to own it in myself.

I’ve lived my life with the guiding assumption that at some point I would Arrive at a measurable point and Be A Success.  Because this has been an assumption, it has controlled me without lending itself to being questioned or examined.  It has kept me in a place of discounting all the little milestones that have made up my life.  

I imagine that there are people who don’t have this problem, people who can experience their achievements as measures of success in the broad scope of their life.  But I know there are an awful lot of people like my students and my niece and me who need to give up the idea that the daily successes don’t count.   We need to count the fact that we finished the program, our singing has improved, we handled an issue at work diplomatically, our garden is healthy, we’ve stayed committed to someone who’s ill, we finished making the quilt or painting the room, the interview went well, we’ve mastered pronouncing the “th” sound, or we met a self-imposed goal.  

We also need to join the celebration of those successes that are right out there in plain sight for everyone to see.  The promotion, getting a part in the show, the diploma, the ribbon cutting, the new condo, or the Jr. Lifeguard Certificate.  We need to stop saying, “aw, shucks,” and instead say, “thank you”.  We need to receive the gift of recognition.  Then we need to give that gift to ourselves.

The bottom line is that these successes are the stuff of life.  To discount them is to discount your own journey.  Counting them is feeling your own life and your own power.  Experiencing them is learning humility and joy.  My love for others has brought this hidden and controlling assumption into the light to be questioned.  And if I believe it for those I care for, I must live it for myself.  It may take me a while to get the hang of it, but it’ll have a fun payoff.  When I have a success it will count twice – once for the accomplishment itself and again for having noticed it!

I've told people for years:

If you really want to learn something, teach it.  Once you've heard yourself tell others what you believe over and over, you begin to believe that it can apply to you, too.

Believing in others is easy.  Talking the talk is easy.  Applying that belief to one's own life and walking the walk is quite another thing.

Since I've been teaching for so very, very long, I've had to apply a number of the principles I believe in to my own life, despite the fact that those principles are generous, loving, and hold me responsible for my thoughts and actions.  It's not so bad, I've found, once you  get the hang of it.

Now I'm hearing a small and distant voice telling me about the potential in myself that I've encouraged others to see in themselves.  

A few nights ago I woke up at 3:00 a.m.  Couldn't go back to sleep.  My mind was racing.  I had been fed an idea from Tim Ferris's book "The 4-Hour Work Week" that day - the idea that my (me, my, mine) expertise in voice could reach out across cyberspace and help lots and lots of people. 

Now, let's be honest.  Tim was not the first person to suggest this.  A short list of people who have suggested this over the years would include my mother, my father, my husband, numerous friends, other books, Perry Marshall (perrymarshall.com), Joan Stewart (publicityhound.com), and my 8-year-old daughter.  Recently I asked my students for testimonials I could post on my web site.  The responses I got were words of trust in me and respect for my knowledge and they made me cry.  That probably contributed to this decision as well.  Don't know.  But Tim's book was the tipping point for me.  At least in my mind.  Whether or not my actions can follow remains to be seen.

That night, that 3:00 in the morning night, I woke up and went to my computer.  I wrote up an ignorant but hopeful business plan outline.  The idea is to create videos that can help anyone improve their singing.  Against my nature, I'm going to aim for improvement rather than ultimate goal. Regarding singing, a little freedom can go a long way to improve someone's enjoyment of their singing.  I believe I can make a fool-proof system that will give anyone who participates in it more freedom and strength in their singing.

This will be a big job.  It will take money I don't have, and probably more time than it should.  But mostly, it will require me to believe in myself as I believe in my students.  It will insist that I allow for the unfolding process as I constantly encourage my students to do.  It will give me an yet another opportunity to find the joy in the journey.