Ria’s Ramblings

I was watching a Championship League football match on the TV the other day, and among the banter that was going on in the room, I remarked that I was expecting the level of football to be better than it was (not that I’m any real judge) because the players were professional and thus, being paid to be good at their job.

One of my companions remarked that being paid for the job was not the entire definition of what ‘being professional’ is – and how correct he was!

Professionalism is far more about attitude than about the paycheck – although clearly, the paycheck is important when one relies on it to pay the bills! However, the general populace’s understanding of professionalism in the performing arts falls far short of the reality. I meet this problem almost every day, be it in students training to enter the profession – who you would think would have some understanding, given that it is explained and demonstrated to them every day – or in hobbyists and amateurs who dream about being in the profession, or who aspire to do something as simple as sing in a local choir.

There is a vast chasm between what people perceive to be professionalism and the work that this actually entails, and the harsh reality of making a living and / or achieving professional standards in the industry. The problem is until you’ve experienced, first hand, the sheer hard work involved, and seen close up the standards achieved by actual, proper, full-on professional people, there is absolutely no way to understand it. You might as well try to understand what childbirth feels like, having never been through it. Whatever you imagine or intellectually understand, it can never match the reality of the experience.

Thus it is that I spend a great deal of my life being exasperated by students who think they’ve ‘got what it takes’ to be professional or who believe that they’re delivering professional standards, and also by hobbyists who want to dip their toe in the water but can’t grasp what it takes to be good, even at grass roots level.

The reality is that, whatever your aspirations, it takes daily hard graft. Hours of it. You need to practise in order to keep your skills sharp. You have to get past the idea that great performance is simply about remembering words and notes and standing in the right place at the right time. Good god no! You have to do more than sing once a week through stuff that you didn’t learn properly in the first place, then hope for the best. There will be no ‘best’ under these circumstances. First you have to listen – a lot! Then you have to commit the material to memory – and I mean every note, every syllable, every note length, every dynamic variation, every nuance. And at that point, you’ll be ready to start working on the piece! It has very little to do with talent (although that helps) and everything to do with grafting. The 10,000-hour rule applies, big time.

So, if you’re a student, or a hobbyist seeking to be really good at what you do, please understand this – you will never be good enough until you get past the ‘try to remember it and then hope for the best’ stage. You need to absorb the material – all of it – into your very being. And then you have to add in the peripherals, like physical conditioning, turning up on time, fully warmed up before you get into the rehearsal space / lesson / whatever. And then determining to be even better prepared next time.

To paraphrase an old favourite: You wanna be good? Well being good costs. And right here’s where you start paying – in hours of practise, dedication and hard graft.

Welcome to my world……….