Are you ready?

"Stop waiting to feel ready. Ready is not a feeling. It's a decision." - Blaise Ticha

"I'm not ready." - Young Singers (who may or may not be ready).

"You're not ready." - Mentors who say this for a variety of reasons (sometimes to be helpful, other times - perhaps - to be controlling).

I rail against the concept of "ready" a lot with young singers and their mentors. I can't even begin to tell you how many times in my professional and teaching career I've had a totally competent and ready singer tell me they didn't audition for something (a role, a chorus, a summer program, a competition) because their coach/teacher told them they were not ready. Often, I think it's because they are mistaking an audition opportunity as a young singer for preparing to sing Suzuki on the La Scala stage.

"Why do you feel this way?" I'd ask, incredulously. "Who told you you weren't ready?"

"Well, we're working on <insert reason> and so my technique is not quite ready" or "I was discussing my career path with my <insert mentor> and they feel I should wait until I'm really ready" or "I want to sing for <you> or <insert name of program> next year when I'm ready".

Or or or or or... I've heard it all. And every single solitary time I stand there and bite my tongue because - guess what - 95% of the time they are completely ready for whatever we were talking about.

There are more than a few who tell me in one breath why they've been told they're not ready to audition for a spot in the chorus but in another breath say it's because they're concentrating on repertoire for their fall auditions (which include a Merola or Santa Fe application.) Other times, I'm told that they've been told by mentors that they should only audition for opportunities when they are ready, and that because of <insert reason I don't agree with> they're going to wait another year.

Not ready for a chorus in a University, but readying for a spot in the illustrious Merola program in San Francisco? Not ready to even try to audition and see what might happen? Not ready because they assume <insert excuses> will cause them not to be able to succeed in their <insert activity>?

Or worse, I'm told they need to step back from "opera" so they can "focus on their voice". One can focus on the voice and participate in an opera. Removing one activity does not give more time to the other. In my experience, singers say this and then a few years later admit they thought it was a mistake. I'll write out what I tell singers: you learn to sing by singing, not by solely studying to sing.

It's kinda sad really. These students have only so many years. These young artists only have one summer, or one month, or a few years, trying to get into the circuit before they age out, or no longer have access to the great music staff, or have opportunities to perform while still growing as a singer and artist. School years pass in the blink of an eye and one needs to take as many opportunities as possible while still young.

I tell you, time is fleeting. Opera doesn't kill voices (opera kills fictional people on the stage). Opera doesn't prevent someone from concentrating on their studies, or their technique, or fixing a technical problem, or from pursuing work, or hobbies, or church jobs. All young singers - all of them - need to take advantage of each and every performance. If we are serious about training young classical musicians to enter into the life as a professional, they need to learn how to balance all of the many elements that go into that life. Occasionally a student can't figure out how to balance practicing with rehearsing while doing their homework and going to classes. They need to learn these skills. Sometimes, a student's personal life or professional life (they need to work extensive hours to pay the rent) needs to take priority - of course this is true. That's an example of not being able, not not being ready.

Okay, I know. Some of you are "but wait, a young singer could hurt themselves singing too much too soon!" Yes, I agree. That's not what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about exploring repertoire. I'm talking about learning stage craft skills while in a chorus so that they're not floundering around onstage not knowing the jardin from the courts side of the stage (stage right from stage left). I'm talking about getting young singers onto the stage as soon as possible so they can figure out whether or not they like it or want to pursue it. Because folks, it's fucking expensive, it's endlessly challenging, and very few make it in a solo career. Most successful singers, especially when starting out, must know how to balance multiple job portfolios, gigs, learning new music for the next gig, lessons, coachings, rehearsals, and life!

Why hold them back until they're ready to find out they want to teach, or make money in real estate, or don't enjoy learning music, memorizing text, acting emotional in front of strangers, or learning to waltz. Let alone, those who may not realize what opera is about - the misogyny onstage, the violence, the sex, the tragedy, all that stuff that makes many people uncomfortable nowadays. There's so, so, so much to learn about singing onstage, creating a character, singing with an orchestra, following a conductor, holding props, walking while singing, stage combat, simulated intimacy, plus all the makeup, wigs, and costumes (sometimes weighing many pounds). One can't get ready for all these disparate things just in their voice teachers' studios, or their practice rooms, or during coachings. That's just part of the readiness.

A few years ago, I blogged about the training that I, and many successful singers, received at Simpson College back in Robert Larsen's day running both the music department and Des Moines Metro Opera. Check it out here: https://patricksoperablog.blogspot.com/2015/04/singing-in-darkness.html

We were mostly all Iowa kids from small cities, tiny towns, and farming communities who had no earthly clue what an opera was. Yet there we were, all undergrad students, singing huge scenes programs and real operas like The Tales of Hoffmann, Don Giovanni, Susannah, and The Consul. No one got hurt, most weren't ready, but we learned the scores, built the sets, rehearsed into the wee hours, and performed them as if we meant it.

I'm a firm believer that undergraduate singers need to experience singing opera in an opera as early as possible. I've run successful programs at Ithaca College (almost solely with undergrad students) and at McGill University. Many (if not most) of the big "success stories" were students who sang in shows - roles mind you - during their bachelor's degrees.

Over the course of my many years teaching, undergraduates have sung hundreds of roles. They've learned a lot. Some of them have gone on to the biggest stages of the world: The Met, Vienna, San Fran, Canadian Opera Company, Paris Opera, Glyndebourne, Opéra de Montreal, and many many more. With me they sang complete roles like Marcello, Escamillo, Nick Shadow, Collatinus (actually that was one precocious McGill undegrad!), Colline, Schaunard, Dido, Baba the Turk, Magda Sorel, Don Ottavio, Zerlina, Peter Quint, Sid, Guglielmo, Ferrando, Lady Billows, Miss Wordsworth, Albert Herring, Eisenstein, Adele, and many others including many many Handelian roles. I'd argue they got further along in the careers because they started sooner than their peers.

The sooner students get into opera, the sooner they realize they love it (or the opposite). There's no time to wait.

Plus - now let's go back to that first quote: "Stop waiting to feel ready. Ready is not a feeling. It's a decision."

Yes, it's a decision. Decide to be ready, then march to the doors keeping you from the rooms you say are your goals, and then knock on those doors and walk in as if you belong there.

I certainly did and so did so many of my colleagues who found success. We didn't wait for someone outside of ourselves to tell us we were ready. I always took every opportunity I could, often jumping into the deep end of a pool that I had no idea how deep the water actually was (or even if there was water...) Being the assistant editor of an opera anthology while still in my bachelor's degree? Sure! Singing the Emperor Altoum at DMMO the summer I was an apprentice coach? Okay, sure! Directing Verdi's "Un giorno di Regno" in Pittsburgh for a missing Tito Capobianco while being the head coach? No one else was there, so okay! Conducting the offstage banda for a Juilliard Opera Center show because the assistant conductor had to conduct the matinee because the conductor was sick? I'd never really conducted much, but I did it! Literally being at Juilliard as an opera coach fellow - was I ready? Nope, not at all, but that didn't stop me. I practiced till all hours, played for everyone I could and for every rehearsal I could. Making my professional conducting debut for a student matinee at Opera Memphis because Michael Ching said "hey, you wanna conduct the matinee?" Yes! Absolutely!

I survived and grew and learned and experienced mostly successes and a few failures. But the growth was dynamic. I didn't wait for the sun to shine upon me. I didn't wait for anyone to tell me I was or was not ready. I assumed I was ready because people were asking me to do things or they needed me to do things. They needed me to step up and play, or conduct, or coach, or direct, or schedule, or edit, or record with the Canadian Brass while I was finishing my masters in piano performance while interning at Hal Leonard publishing in Milwaukee the summer before I set off for Juilliard. Treating young musicians like they are infants that need to be taken care of, kept away from dangerous objects or outlets, does nothing for them except infantilizes them into needing the person holding them back.

Often when people wait, the opportunities pass them by. Then the unknown of what might have been never materializes for them. Connections are missed, networks are closed, growth is stunted or paused until they're ready at some undetermined moment down some future path that may or may not materialize in front of them again.

Time is fleeting. It's also priceless, but you can't own it, you can only use it. Once it is gone, you can never get it back. Or as Alice Walker once wrote: "Time moves slowly but passes quickly." You might think you have all the time in the world, but you don't. The time is now. Get out there. You're ready.

Yes, I don't know you, but you are Ready with a capital R. And if you're not, the world will still turn and you'll learn what perhaps many never do - that even though you weren't ready you did it anyway and became more ready for the next time.

It's a decision only you can make. Stop letting yourself be held back by well-meaning people who may or may not actually know what you're capable of. Sometimes they're not really thinking about you, they're thinking about their reputation as a teacher, or they're thinking they have some responsibility to protect you - an adult - from entering into an experience they might assume you're not ready for. They might be right, but they also might be totally wrong.

Not auditioning for something because you might get cast is just silly, especially for young singers. So they don't cast you. Maybe they ask you if you're interested in being a super in a show - terrific, say yes and learn about opera. Maybe they ask you to be an assistant director or be a cover - terrific, say yes and learn about opera. Maybe they cast you in a role from a show you really think might be too much for you to handle. You won't know if you don't try to handle it - learn it, rehearse it, coach it, and sing it. Unless you're 19 and singing Senta or Rigoletto or Wozzeck or Pinkerton (and really, what program does that?), opera was mostly written for young singers and young voices. You'll be okay. And if it actually is something you shouldn't be singing, then that's when those mentors need to step up and offer advice.

When you decide you're ready, you might - at some point - actually feel ready! And then that's when being ready can actually be a feeling and a decision!