Top of the world

Or at least I should be....

On the one hand, I am. I personally felt that for such an aggressive challenging program, I kicked some Serious Ass.

No performance is without its flaws. Mine tended towards two - I would have preferred to be off book ( memorized) and my words were literally failing me.

So each point:

1. My program wasn't set until 2 weeks before. I'm not THAT good at memorizing things and seriously I needed the crutch. But I was to conscious of it being there and I blew words on a tune that I know well enough to be off book and actually referred to it while I was singing. Not cool. Next time, if there is a next time and I'll cover that later, it will be set much further out than that to allow time for better memorization.

2. if I fail at something it's RARELY note or rhythm related. Its nearly always words. So most of my issues were word related down to a letter.

3. There are miscellaneous failings in coordination. These are the things that irk me the most. For starters, you don't give notes midway through a performance, ever, unless something like a train wreck with no recovery happens. I got notes. I got notes on stupid things that qualify in the area of Miscellaneous Failings in Coordination. Things like how I acknowledged the audience ( I used the three thank you method). He didn't like that, he advised me that "I had BETTER acknowledge my other performers correctly or they will be upset." during my intermission. Now in my opinion a lot of thins could have prevented this from happening and the subsequent commentary on how he doesn't' do postmortems but I could bet my sweet ass we were going to at my next lesson and I had better be there - no excuses.

Who the hell is he?

The man is a damn good coach. But come on. I'm not a freshman in college, I have performed hundreds of times before. He has worse performance nerves than I do. I didn't deal with 80% of the pre-performance stress that I normally do with him around because he did it all for me.

But in reality, I have more music degrees than he does. I have more paper proving it than he does. I always say that paper isn't the same as getting the job done, but it does help.

Why do I bring this up? Because now I am second and third guessing myself on my performance when I should have been reveling in it. He literally sucked the wind out of my sails with those two comments. He took the joy out of it for me by making the threat of "you wait until your father gets home" or "We'll have a "talk" about that later". The threat of a post mortem is just F'd up. First of all NOTHING DIED. NOTHING WENT HIDEOUSLY WRONG ENOUGH TO WARRANT A POST MORTEM.

The man unfortunately suffers two issues.

1. It's all about him. He was going to cut my favorite and best song because his pipe organ wasn't working. I said do it on piano an he said NO. Excuse me ? Whose freaking recital is it again?
2. He speaks first and thinks second. so words like "post mortem" which, in my industry, indicate that a circuit failed for more than 4 hours and the customer deserves an explanation, should never be used in a performance scenario. ever. I will NEVER do that to a kid. So help me GOD.

So I am second and third and now fourth guessing my performance. I am not as happy as I should be. I spent an hour on the way home from my mom's talking to Voice twin, who sang a duet with me, about it. She has done all the material that I did, so she was honest. She told me that I did a bang up job on an otherwise ambitious program and I didn't display vocal exhaustion or anything like that. My personal criticisms were the same ones that she noted so we were on the same page. I have other friends - musicians - that were there that I will want to speak with for honest notes. I also have a recording to listen to for that same purpose. I am after all my worst critic and even I didn't think I blew enough things to warrant a Post Mortem.

I don't think that TONIGHT should have me as down as it does. I don't thank my coach for that and when he is through with his post-mortem I will have one of my own to give. It's deliverance will be largely dependent on how his notes are delivered to me.

I'm not being vindictive - though that appears to be a nice bi-product. I will cut him slack because he had flown out and back to a Carolina perform and eulogize his first teacher. But regardless, he will hear the points about notes at intermission, threats at the end and organization or lack thereof.

He's immensely proud of me. I do know that. But dammit man - show it!

I got nothing but good comments from everyone who was there. I am trying like hell to keep those in the forefront of my mind until next week.

So on the one hand I am on top of the world and on the other - I'm pissed.

We did have a lovely party at my moms for a few of us and it was a lot of fun. I was thrilled to see my Bernie, two of my dear friends were there,Voice Twin and of course my parents. That was a blast my mom is the best hostess - we had a great time.

My mom being a musician and all, she told me that I brought tears to her eyes. I, of course, asked if she were in pain.... I was kidding. She was just floored. She couldn't believe that I was able to pull off such an ambitious program. To be honest, if I had been a little bit more assertive in the planning phase, the program would have been very different and lot less stressful. Live and learn. I told Voice Twin to learn from my mistakes. Do not be bullied into tunes you don't feel comfortable with . Do not give up creative control. Don't tolerate inappropriate behaviour, Don't tolerate excuses, and don't let the little boy-I'm-so-stupid act sway you. Sadly many traits that come with the genious territory.

Most of all, don't leave the details to him. He can coach you through the tune and all of its wonders and do a dynamite job at it. But if you don't cover things like Performance etiquette and all the things that go with it.... you get notes at intermission when you need to be focusing on other things. So really, the lesson learned is don't leave him the details. Don't leave anything to chance and don't assume that he remembers what he's been told or what he has heard.

I do so apologize for the rant. I am just very disappointed on how this worked out and how my teacher actually nearly ruined an amazing experience for me by simple lack of planning and thinking. I take some responsibility for the planning, but come on!

You'll get a much better view from me tomorrow or the next day when I've had time to calm down and review things better.