Since I am certified in all 3 levels of the program, I attended a post-certification program on Speaking and Singing with the Same Voice, taught by Joan Melton. I’ve already discussed how wonderful this was. I had not attended Jeannie’s seminar before, and decided to do it this year – honestly, for political/networking reasons. And as the final day of the post-certification program ended, I was pretty much ready to go home and was regretting having signed up for another day’s work.
The seminar’s direction was decided by each participant. Jeannie asked, “What do you want to know?” and we all made our requests. Some people wanted to be warmed up by Jeannie, some wanted to discuss working on the high belt mix, some wanted to know how much chest was too much, one person wanted to know how to teach a rock scream, and I wanted to see SVW™ principles implemented with male voices. We did all these things, and I gained tons from it.
But we started out with a brief lecture by Jeannie and this is what I took away from it (somewhat paraphrased):
Like 12-step, it’s one day at a time. There are some days that you don’t do it (practice, sing, exercise, stay sober/straight), and you acknowledge that you didn’t do it and you try to do better. It’s a reflection on the state of your life, not your voice. You don’t have a bad voice – you’re just not working on it.
So I acknowledge that after about 2 months of eating pretty healthfully and staying away from fast food, I didn’t do it last night (curse you, Wendy’s). And I will try to do better.
And my house and studio are not fully functional yet. I acknowledge that I have to spend some time in getting it to where it needs to be so that I can teach here in the fall. And I will try to do better.
And I have a beautiful voice and I haven’t been working on it. And I will try to do better.
I think that's true about everything in life. As long as we have the awareness to acknowledge where we fell short we can make changes. Beating up on ourselves and wallowing in guilt is counter-productive.