At the closing Liederabend of our 2018 Vienna: Language of Lieder program (in the Bösendorfer Saal of the Mozart “Figaro” Haus), I gave our ten brilliant students the following ten “gifts.” At that time (June 23, 2018), the list was delivered as a monologue. Here it is written and revised, for your consideration.

[NB: These tasks are sequential; each is to some degree dependent on the previous ones.]

1. Commit to and enjoy the challenge of consistent, progressive work on yourself and your skills. You must be in it for “the long haul.”
2. Become the strongest musician you can possibly be. This effort must be constantly addressed, and complacency must be avoided. Mastering another instrument (e.g., piano) and exploring that repertoire will make it less likely for vocal issues to distract you from honestly evaluating your musicianship. Much of what is perceived as vocal problems is actually a “software failure,” in that the voice is not given clear commands by the inner ear, due to weak musical skills. In other words, don’t always blame bad singing on poor vocal technique.
3. Read as a poet, not in a monotone, non-personalized voice. Merely pretending to be expressive puts you on track for specific interpretive choices. You must choose to be expressive in order to express.
4. Enjoy the ongoing discovery of interplay between text and music, the essence of meaningful, effective, and beautiful singing. Never be simply a “sound machine.” Yes, there are times in vocalization (at every level of development) when the sound itself is explored, but this kind of work is not a final stage.
5. See the page, hear the music, feel meaning, release beauty.
6. Commit to artistic choices. The willingness to do so reflects and requires personal courage.
7. Be willing to take risks.
8. Enjoy the sound of your own voice, and how it feels to release your own, authentic sound. Merely making the appropriate sound is not enough. The sound of the voice itself is a major vehicle for expression, not only specific musical/textual choices.
9. Know your technique(s) so well that you almost never think about it in performance. Performance is not about working hard, remembering to push all the right buttons.
10. Know yourself so well that you need “check in” only occasionally. It is the immature and undisciplined artist who constantly disappears from the audience’s view in order to search for him/herself. A secure artistic foundation is a base of operation, constantly supporting the performance.

BONUS: Repeat frequently.

Young students – all of us, actually – can be easily confused by perceived differences of opinion and method among various teachers, coaches, or conductors. Although accomplished and trustworthy artists/teachers hold certain essential values in common, each one of them has unique preferences and insights.

Combine that individuality with the fact that each student is a “moving target” at every moment, and it becomes even more difficult to find absolute, fundamental rules about artistry, even about technique. It is even less likely that one will find a definitive and specific plan for interpreting any piece of music.

Yes, through comparing performances of a piece by past and present artists we can begin to perceive common ideas and characteristics. However, we never really know an artist’s intention, we know only how we take it in from the air. Merely imitating our perception of what we’ve heard or seen can actually take us further away from a performer’s authentic and more meaningful intention.

What a privilege in lessons or classes, to hear a seasoned artist describe and/or demonstrate those inner, creative impulses that give birth to what we actually take in as listeners. Only through considerable time in study, consideration, and practice, does one develop the unique balance that begins to define his/her own artistic personality. When an artist (surely including students) is privileged to encounter advice/teaching from a great and more experienced artist, growth can and should result!

Consider something so basic as tempo. One teacher may insist on a faster tempo in a song, perhaps due to the student’s lethargy and lack of conviction, or because she/he is lost in inner space, searching for profundity. Another teacher may insist on a slower tempo on the same piece, to help that same student on another day to find gravity and more intense delivery of the song’s essence.

Dogmatic instructions for the “correct” performance of anything are suspect, at best. One is wise to stop looking for the perfect interpretation of anything. Avoid simplistic, mass-marketed methods that seem logical, even effective in some limited way. Such cookie-cutter approaches lead to pretense and “looks-like” imitations, not true and unique artistry.

The privilege and responsibility of an artist is to synthesize input from various sources, finally coming up with performances that honor essential and needed “rules,” yet those performances are marked with the performer’s fingerprints.

Consider a cake recipe. Some ingredients are essential, otherwise the longed-for cake will instead be a cracker! Yet there is plenty room and need for customization of the recipe.

True, a freshly-prepared hamburger at McDonald’s will be consistent under any authorized Golden Arches, but it is still a Mickey D’s burger – generally not the most nutritious or interesting meal. [Note the several food references in the post; it’s almost lunch time!]

The program that I founded and am privileged to direct, Vienna: Language of Lieder, exists (like some others) to deliver tools, knowledge, skill, experience, exposure – all things that one incorporates to become an artist, not merely a conveyor of others’ preferences. One cannot be an effective and powerful artist with a Fundamentalist, “just follow the instructions,” mindset.