This got me thinking about my role as a musician and performer. When performing in front of an audience, my hope is that I am interpreting the music and telling the story in such a way that I am helping the audience solve some sort of problem, or posing a question they may not have asked themselves before. In that context of helping the audience (in whatever ways artists can), what might it look like to choose autonomy-oriented helping over dependency-oriented helping?
Read moreSpitting on the Front Row
The spitting, disgusting as it may have been, was the unintentional byproduct of clear communication (i.e. good diction). The singer literally drenched the audience in their communicative intent. Disregarding the social expectation that one keep their saliva inside their mouth, thank you very much, the singer threw themself into the narrative—or non-narrative, as the case may be—of their performance.
Read moreDesk Job Lessons
Artists often get very wrapped up in our whats. We are our art; we and our creations are one and the same. But what happens when a catastrophe comes along and rips away our ability to share our creations with others, at least in the way we were accustomed to sharing them? Over-identifying with the “what” leads to inflexibility, and if it all falls apart, it leads to despair.
Rather, we can realize that what we create is simply a function of our reason for creating. If I can’t build the empathy bridge on a stage, maybe I can do it at a computer.
The Reverence Trap
I’m guilty of that trap we singers tend to fall into, which is believing that what we do is sacred and untouchable. I’ve been gifted with the ability to spin melodies out of nothingness using only the flesh and muscle I was born with, and this gift is fragile and must be treated with the utmost reverence.
This is bullshit. And it’s selfish. It displaces the onus of responsibility for the work, making “the voice” responsible for the magic, rather than the self.
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