Of all the Italian infinitives, I identify most closely with fare, to make, to do. These words accurately describe me and my vocal journey.
I came out of the womb an overachiever, one who focused on excelling, accomplishing, and attaining. I do not have the luxury of looking to my parents as the source of this inner drive; they never demanded that I succeed. Instead, they seemed to look on in amazement as I set my sights on a goal and pushed myself towards it. They enjoy telling the story of me at the age of 3, when I took a box and a stack of books to the middle of the driveway and proclaimed that I wasn’t getting up until I learned to read. This drive to achieve, even in the face of danger (I certainly could have chosen a less hazardous location, but perhaps the driveway was subconsciously intentional so as to accelerate my progress!) has been with me all of my life.
Lately, however, I have begun to contemplate this inner drive to make, to do—and have realized the need to reacquaint myself with another Italian infinitive, essere, to be. I remember being confused by essere in my Italian studies: it takes on many forms in different tenses. Somewhere between è, ero, and siamo, I failed to connect with this verb and its many forms. I am now beginning to see that this was more than an academic failing and how it is symptomatic of an imbalance in not only my singing, but my life.
Thinking back to Neil Semer’s excellent essay on chiaroscuro in the October 2003 issue of Classical Singer, I have begun to realize that a balance between making, doing and being is a necessity in our craft. I believe that each of us has a natural inclination towards one of the two, and we must work to cultivate the opposite in order to find chiaroscuro, or balance. In my own pursuit of balance, I have come up with the following areas to be evaluated:
• Define your goals.
Many wonderful articles have been written in Classical Singer about vocal paths beyond the La Scala route. For me, my goals have always been to become the finest musician that I can, to continue to sing, and to move people with my voice. I know these goals and yet, so often I lose sight of them as I become engaged in the competition of this business. To avoid this trap, write down your goals, revisit them, and revise them as necessary.
• Access your level of contentment.
I know of too many singers who look to an accomplishment or to a successful career as the balm for their general sense of malcontent. The problem with such thinking is obvious; each time you accomplish a goal, another is always on the horizon: a singer who is achieving more at an accelerated rate, or the fear that you will lose the ground you have slaved to achieve.
I have had the opportunity to interact with singers at all stages of their careers and I can tell you from experience that vocal success and a career do not ensure contentment. In fact, the reality is that the life of a successful singer can be extremely isolating in its requirements of travel, of separation from loved ones, and the need to continually establish working relationships with new colleagues. In light of such challenges, it becomes clear that we must prepare ourselves for success by beginning to address those areas of life that we are placing on hold until we succeed, whether that be personal, relational, spiritual, physical, or other careers.
Find a trusted friend or counselor to help you in this inner journey towards personal contentment. It is not to be found in accomplishment; it is a state of the heart, mind, and soul that allows us to face both success and defeat bravely and graciously.
• Remember the privilege.
We have the greatest job in the world. With our voices, we are able to lift people out of themselves, to remind them of wonder, of mystery, of beauty. This is a privilege. Repeatedly throughout my life, I have had people comment on what a gift I have been given in my ability to sing. I have to confess, on many occasions I have wanted to tell them how much work this blessing is, about my own struggles with the reality of my imperfect performance, of my colleague who has achieved so much more and is really much better than I am. This sort of self-absorbed thinking ruins the gift for me and for my audience. The reality is that I am infinitely blessed to have a voice and to be able to use it for the enjoyment of others.
As I struggle to embrace essere, I hear the words of my yoga teacher and her constant reminders for us to check our egos at the door, to accept that our practice is a process, to not judge or critique, but to accept where we are, and, of course, to breathe. These are lofty aspirations and often run contrary to my natural drive for success and my need for achievement, but I recognize how desperately I need to heed her words in order to find balance in my life and in my singing. It is my deepest desire to hear, “Well done,” at the end of this race of life, and so I continue to work towards tempering my natural fare with a healthy dose of essere.
The poet Ranier Marie Rilke expresses this balance eloquently in his Letters to a Young Poet:
There is here no measuring with time, no year matters, and ten years are nothing. Being an artist means, not reckoning and counting, but ripening like the tree which does not force its sap and stands confident in the storms of spring without the fear that after them may come no summer. It does come. But it comes only to the patient, who are there as though eternity lay before them, so unconcernedly still and wide. I learn it daily, learn it with pain to which I am grateful: patience is everything!
Perhaps with practice, I may one day be able to say of this quest for balance, “fa niente.”
