Author Archive

May
19

I am studying at university and on the whole I am learning a lot and enjoying my time there. What I don’t like though is the amount of things I have to do because “it is part of the course”. Things like:

  • I have had to complete units which I have done equivalent units for in my last degree.
  • I have to learn high level music analysis which I would not have much use for as a singer
  • I have to participate in group assignments which are pitched at much younger, inexperienced students

In short I am having to do a lot of stuff which leaves me questioning “Why am I doing this?”

I know that in any degree you invariably learn things that have no real application in the real world. You will always have to learn things that you will never use again, mostly because you have no idea what the future has in store. take for example my last degree. I did two units on teaching TEE level English units (these are the units high level year 11 and 12 students take). On all of my practicals and even when I graduated I never taught TEE English. I found that I had more interest in teaching low ability and learning difficulty students. When I did my degree, however, I didn’t know I was never going to use those units so I completed them anyway.

I guess one of the main differences this time around is that I have much more of an idea of what I want to do with my life so I am able to look at what I am studying with more understanding of how it is going to contribute to my musical life. I just wish I had more say in why I am doing the things I am doing.

I guess this post all came about because last night I had to take part in a production of the Mikado. It was dreadful. I have never been more embarrassed to be a part of a show before. It was highly unprofessional, under directed, under rehearsed and not well organised. I learned a lot about what shouldn’t be done in a production but at the same time I already knew a lot of those things. I have participated in dance concerts and amateur musicals which were more of a professional standard. The most embarrassing thing about it though is that these students (including myself) are hoping to be professionals one day and should be acting like professionals while studying.

I just don’t know why I am doing it, other than to get a tick for that part of the unit.

Image by Bas. K (Flickr)

May
06

 

 

This has been bugging me a lot lately and I guess I am writing this post more as a way to vent than anything else. Okay so get to the point! The story goes like this:

I work in a theatre (a real life theatre with actors on a stage not a movie theatre). Currently we have a production running which is determined by the producers to be “child and family friendly”. It is a family show, I’ve seen it twenty three times already and it is suitable for children, let me correct that – some children. The show carries a recommendation that it is suitable for children over the age of six as it contains scenes which may frighten young children. It also runs at nearly two and a half hours with only one twenty minute interval. I have trouble sitting still for that long and children seem to have even more difficulty. What has been bugging me about all of this is the amount of people who have been bringing very young children, I’m talking two to five year olds, and then proceed to:

  • complain about how unsuitable the show is for their children
  • they complain that their child can’t sit still for the whole show so they end up missing the majority of it by constantly taking their child in and out of the theatre
  • disrupt the rest of the theatre by allowing their child to carry on, dance around, talk and sing while the show is on then use the excuse of “they are just children” to cover the bad behaviour
  • get verbally abusive to other people in the theatre or the staff who politely ask them to control their children

The main thing that is bugging me about all of this is that these people (and they are not always parents but well meaning aunts, uncles, grandparents or family friends) have paid no regard at all to the recommendation of the show. The recommendation is there for a reason. Which brings me to my next annoyance:

A friend recently posted on Facebook asking people for their opinion on whether the Avengers movie would be suitable for his five year son to attend with the side note that “he saw Captain America last year”.

My immediate reaction was “WTF!!!”. Why would anyone take a five year old to see a M rated movie. I’ve seen the Avengers. It has a huge amount of violence in it (You see people beat the absolute crap out of each other, in one scene a guy dies on screen, and then there is the terrifying aliens that are seen destroying the city). I’m not sure about you but I would be taking my five year old to go see the Muppets or Sesame Street. Just because you stupidly took your four year old to go see a movie last year that was, again, completely unsuitable for him, why would you want to make the same mistake again by taking them to another unsuitable movie?

I don’t get it. Ratings are there for a reason. Why would any parent want to subject their child to material which is unsuitable for them? It does nothing for the well being of the child, if anything you are going to do damage to your child. The child that has been taken to the theatre before they are old enough is going to relate their experience with boredom and getting yelled at by an increasingly less patient parent, rather than remembering the experience as the magical entertainment it should be. The child which is subjected to graphic violence in a movie as a child is not going to understand the context of that violence but rather remember that violence equates to entertainment.

But of course my opinion counts for nothing. Why?

“You don’t have children. You wouldn’t understand.”

I can’t wait for the day that I have children and get endowed with all the earthly knowledge of child raising which comes with it. I’m guessing a magical parenting fairy descends upon me as I give birth and my brain is suddenly filled with all the knowledge of the universe on children and child raising. I guess I will just have to wait and find out.

Image by teruhn (flickr)

Apr
27

I watch a TV show called Dance Academy. It is meant for teenagers but I really enjoy it. It is simple, it has dancing and singing in it and on occasion it makes me think more about the life I am living. The last episode that I saw concerned one of the boys in the main group being hit by a car and ultimately dying. I cried….like a baby….anyway that isn’t the point of this post! After he passed away his friends found a list of fifty things that he had wanted to accomplish before he died, and while he didn’t complete all of them he had made a pretty good crack at a lot of them.

This got me thinking. What do I want to achieve before I die? We get a limited time on this earth so I want to make sure I do everything that I want to. I decided I should write a list of my own. It includes some massively big and outrageous ideas alongside some very plain and boring ones. This list doesn’t include everything. I’m sure as I tick one item off the list another thing will take its place. They are also in no particular order, other than the order of which I thought of them and wrote them down.

  1. Sing on the Burswood stage in a professional show
  2. Go watch an Olympic Games live in person
  3. Learn to speak another language with some proficiency
  4. Record an album
  5. Perform in the West End
  6. Perform on Broadway
  7. Meet Bernadette Peters and Lea Salonga
  8. Be the voice of a Disney character
  9. Raise a happy family
  10. Live in another country
  11. Decorate my entire house with Christmas lights
  12. Have a white Christmas
  13. Go to every Disney theme park in the world
  14. Sing the national anthem at an AFL Grand Final
  15. Travel the world
  16. Play the role of Eponine or Fantine in Les Miserables
  17. Go to Rottnest
  18. Travel on a ship
  19. Perform in a professional opera
  20. Perform in a professional musical
  21. Go to an opening night VIP party
  22. Write a book
  23. Visit Broadway
  24. Visit the West End
  25. Attend the Tony awards
  26. Build my own home
  27. Stay in the penthouse of a five star hotel
  28. Go camping under the stars with Ben
  29. Swim with dolphins
  30. Take a roadtrip with no plans
  31. Have a dog named Wilbur
  32. Walk through town in a costume for no reason at all
  33. Sew my own gown
  34. Stand on top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge
  35. Spend a Summer backpacking
  36. Volunteer in another country
  37. Visit Africa and see the African animals
  38. Write a song
  39. Get a standing ovation
  40. Visit Rome and see the Pope
  41. Have a hobby farm which we can live off
  42. See an Opera in the Sydney Opera House
  43. See an Opera in the Paris Opera House
  44. Sing in public for no reason at all
  45. Change someones life for the better
  46. Believe in myself and my own talents
  47. Leave a scholarship in my name
  48. Make a best friend who I can grow old with
  49. Sing on the stage of His Majesty’s Theatre
  50. Attend a concert in Carneige Hall
Apr
26

In ten years time I will look back again just as I did in the post preceding this, but what will I see? The scary thing is that what I will see will be entirely dependant on me. It will depend on the choices I make, the determination I show, the commitment I have and the dedication I prove. At the moment I can dream and I dream that I will fulfill my goals of:

  • being a professional singer
  • learn to speak a foreign language with proficiency
  • have a family
  • travel the world
  • be happy

Whether these things come about though is dependant on my choices, determination, commitment and dedication. If I keep these dreams at the forefront of my mind and apply myself without excuse then there is no reason why I should look back in ten years and be disappointed with the life that I have chosen to live.

Apr
24

This post was originally posted on March 7th but went missing. I found it! So this is a re-post…enjoy!

“I will run every morning before breakfast”
“I will study French every day”
“I will lose five kilos by March”

I set goals for myself all the time. Sometimes they are wild crazy goals. Sometimes they are quite simple. They do have one thing in common though and that is that I set them and then fail to see them through to their complete extent. Take this for example:

When I was younger I used to do race walking. It’s that weird sport which looks like a mix between running and wiggling your bum a lot. When I was fourteen I set the goal of winning a state medal that year. I didn’t care what medal I just wanted to win one. That year I trained harder than I ever had before. My times improved dramatically over the season. I even tracked the rankings throughout the year and saw that I had the second fastest time and the most consistent time out of my age group. I was going to go to the state championships and win my medal!

So what happened?

I went to the zone qualifier and nearly got disqualified after being given two cautions for contact and a warning for knees. I never got cautions. I was one of the cleanest walkers in the competition. This really shook me up and I finished with a time that was nearly double my personal best.

I then went to the states so worried that I would be disqualified that I performed terribly. On my final lap all I remember is crying because I knew I had stuffed it so badly. In the end I finished fourth.

So what is the point of this story? The point is I have a habit when it comes to goal setting, a habit stretching back to childhood. The example above is just one of many that I can think of off the top of my head. My habit is that when I want something so badly that I set a goal to achieve it I then go about self sabotaging myself so that it is near impossible for me to achieve it.

I want to stop this. One step is to break the goal up into smaller more achievable steps. Another is to do some preparation before setting the goal so I know what I am getting myself in for and are prepared for the hard work to come. The most important thing though is to break the habit.