task 2d: Inquiry

What in your daily practice gets you really enthusiasitc to find out more about? Who do you admire who also works with what makes you enthusiastic?

In my first year of college I really struggled with singing. Not because I couldn't sing, but because all of the teachers at my college taught the same method. A rough classical diaphragm support method where no one actually seems to know the biology behind whats going on. The phrase 'imagine this diamond support working' . No, I'm sorry, but I'm not going to base my entire singing training on something imaginary. I got very frustrated and felt I made absolutely no improvement vocally in my first year. However, the beginning of a new year brought with it, a new teacher. One Mr. Matthew Shaw, an absolute genius, who is one of the most knowledgable teachers of Estill technique in the country. Estill technique explains all the physical vocal movement with fact and biology rather than imagination. It allows you to feel exactly what you larynx and vocal folds are doing as you sing and enables us to use and control the voice correctly and safely. I admire Matt and his knowledge of the technique so much as he finally broke through and made me enjoy singing again and allowed me to genuinely make progress and improve my range and ability. I loved the 3 hour lessons we got with him each week, because even though they were very long, I was engaged the entire time due to the floods of knowledge that he was passing on. In my blogs and my journals I always give a good explanation of things, because I feel if you cant, then you don't really know what your talking about, and I don't like to be confused. I will always admire Matt and the technique itself for explaining singing correctly, consisely and having it all actually make sense! For more information on Estill please see : http://www.estillvoice.com/ and for more info on Matt see :http://www.musicteachers.co.uk/teacher/d2502fe8dc55dc167098 because he is bloody brilliant. I line of enquiry for this is my consideration to do a full course of Estill technique later on in life purely for myself and to help me learn more about technique.

What gets you angry or makes you sad? who do you admire who shares your feelings or has found a way to work around the sadness or anger?

Sadness and frustration rather than anger, are common themes that keep reappearing in my journals becasue they appear when I audition for something I really want and don't get it, and when I look around and find that i'm still *just* a waitress. It's really hard because I had such an academic background to have the thought cross your mind that maybe I made a mistake by not going to university and getting a degree in something that would get me a well paid job. But just as that AWFUL thought crosses my mind, I look accross the restaurant and see colleagues and friends who are actually in exactly the same position as myself. My friend and colleague 'Laurie', who is a comedy poet and future radio presenter said to me "sure you could go work in an office and have loads of money, but what are those people going to leave behind, absolutely nothing...I'd just hate to get old and say to someone, yeah I was going to be a radio presenter once, but I just never tried" and it's words like those that remind me that I'd be just as miserable sat behind a desk in a 9-5 job. I admire Laurie's attitude, because though i'm sure she feels sad sometimes, she has the ability to say, no do you know what, I'm going for it and maybe I'll get the chance to do what I love.

What do you love about what you do? who do you admire who also seems to love this or is an example of what you love?

I love singing more than anything in the world. I would love to be a recording artist, not just for the life style, but for the thrill of standing on a festival stage on a summers evening infront of hundreds of thousands of people, as myself, singing music that I love. Some one that I quite admire is 'Lissie'. She is just famous enough that she can travel the world doing what she loves to big venues, but not so famous that she can't have a normal life at the same time. Her music is simple fairly simple and stresses the enjoyment in life and a career like hers would be ideal for me. She is just herself, no bright, over the top costumes and her music allows her to actually sing rather than be completely computerised. http://www.lissie.com/video/ follow the link to see Lissie's website and see videos. I think I just really appreciate that artists like her can still do well today.

What do you feel you don't understand? Who do you admire who does seem to understand it or has found a way of making not understanding it interesting or beautiful, or has asked the same questions as you?

For me the biggest frustration is not understanding, I have a need to understand everything that I'm doing whether it be how or why. There's nothing that sticks in my head particularly but I respect any one who can see that I have a need to know. I hate being told just to accept something when some one cant explain something. I guess for me, I don't understand how certain people get jobs and careers when their amount of talent is little a best. But sometimes I have to accept that with the career I've chosen luck is a massive part of it and knowing people and networking is very important. There are others like me who get frustrated and it's usually the trained professionals who are out of work but have just had to accept that sometimes the wrong person does get through, but they have the faith that one day the right job will appear.