Dear Karen,
Thank you for this thought-provoking post! I have been entertaining the
same ideas about people's comments on my singing for some time. While I
appreciate feedback from professional musicians, it's true that I don't
always trust what I hear - negative OR positive. I don't always know if
there is a hidden agenda. Or if I trust their judgment and their ears.
And what do you do when you get nothing at all? I recently sang a group of
songs in a tribute recital for a very famous song composer's 70th birthday
in New York. This composer is notorious for being completely parsimonious
in complementing performers. I was blown away - and pretty angry, as
well -that this composer, in whose honor this concert was presented, for
Pete's sake, couldn't say a single nice thing to any of the singers, or even
the producer. I was totally bummed afterward, thinking that he thought we
just didn't measure up to the famous singers who had performed and recorded
his output over the years. We were all just too small potatoes for him.
I later found out it's not that he didn't like what he heard; in speaking to
one of the composers in attendance whom I knew well, I found out that his
famous colleague was very taken with my performance in particular and had
nice things to say about some of the other singers. But not to our faces.
Is this some kind of mind game? Or is it just rude? Please understand, I
don't perform for or ever expect praise from any audience, including a
composer. But an acknowledgement of many people's collective efforts to put
together an event celebrating his music would have been appropriate.
SOOOO . . . The point? All I can come up with is Trust Your Instincts.
Don't expect praise/criticism in any form, much less put any stock in it.
(I could tell you stories about conflicting feedback from judges in
competitions, but I won't bore you with it now.) Find one or two people you
trust and listen to them. Then listen to/watch tapes of your performances
and make up your own mind. Easier said than done, but a good direction to
go, I think.
Susan Schneider
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