25 Things: 8. Who Waits Forever Anyway
I am so busy already and things just keep getting busier. Over the weekend, I'll be preparing students for the NATS Festival and spring musical auditions, seeing students in two more shows, teaching lessons and doing some outreach for Pirates. It's total insanity. Also, I have realized that Pirates passes the Bechdel test. When the maidens come on, they have a nice long scene about how they're having fun on the beach and in the entire scene there's only one passing mention that their father can't keep up with them but it isn't the focus of the scene and they don't dwell on it. There's actually time devoted to introducing the girls.
8. Who Waits Forever Anyway
Singing careers take a lot of time. I'm not just talking about putting in 10,000 hours of practice (at three hours per day, every single day, you're still looking at a good 9 years or so) or that you have more than one skill to master. We're talking about the fact that reputations and fan-bases are not built overnight. You can't expect things to happen right away no matter how good you are.
The audition process is long and the better the opportunity, the longer it is going to be. When people are spending millions, they tend to book in advance and they don't want an untested commodity. This singing thing is not going to happen. There's going to be a lot of waiting. A great audition might not yield an offer for weeks or months or years. The callback process may take ages, the album might be put off for years and the show might get held up in previews.
Or you post a bazillion videos on youtube and the most watched one only gets six views and two of them were you and your mom. Or you sing at a cafe and no one seems interested in hearing you and the place is always empty. Or you audition and audition and audition and no one seems interested at all.
This, kids, is how it works. It takes ages. Especially if you're good. Hey, everyone will click on a youtube train wreck but something that's actually good is a harder sell.
But here's the thing, waiting isn't really about waiting. You can't spend your time endlessly checking your e-mail and voicemail for messages that may or may not come. You actually shouldn't be waiting at all. You should be writing a new song, recording a new upload, booking another audition and practicing your music. I can't promise that the offer you're dreaming of will happen, but I can promise that something will happen if you're making the effort and when things finally do start to happen, all that time you put in early on will pay off.
You need to keep this in mind when you see someone having what appears to be instant success. It wasn't instant. Chances are, they've put in years of work and waited a long ass time for that offer to happen. You just didn't see it because they weren't famous back then. You'll only rarely run into the person who can say "Oh her? yeah she was on the church choir since she was 10 and she sang at the donut shop every weekend all through college and it's so cool that she's finally broken through!"
And you should also know that sometimes offers take way more time than you think they should. The person with final say so was on vacation or they had planned to go in another direction at first or the budget numbers weren't crunching or they loved you but every single role you could play has been booked for five years in advance. This is how things happen. I cannot count the tantrums I've thrown and the tears I cried over gigs that I actually got. In some cases, I was even the first choice for them.
Now, I'm not saying that you should take this to mean that if you're not getting where you want to be, you should keep doing exactly what you're doing. There are times when changes do need to be made. I'm just saying that if you have all your ducks lined up, you still shouldn't get too excited about a duck dinner tonight because that meal might need a lot more time to cook.
8. Who Waits Forever Anyway
Singing careers take a lot of time. I'm not just talking about putting in 10,000 hours of practice (at three hours per day, every single day, you're still looking at a good 9 years or so) or that you have more than one skill to master. We're talking about the fact that reputations and fan-bases are not built overnight. You can't expect things to happen right away no matter how good you are.
The audition process is long and the better the opportunity, the longer it is going to be. When people are spending millions, they tend to book in advance and they don't want an untested commodity. This singing thing is not going to happen. There's going to be a lot of waiting. A great audition might not yield an offer for weeks or months or years. The callback process may take ages, the album might be put off for years and the show might get held up in previews.
Or you post a bazillion videos on youtube and the most watched one only gets six views and two of them were you and your mom. Or you sing at a cafe and no one seems interested in hearing you and the place is always empty. Or you audition and audition and audition and no one seems interested at all.
This, kids, is how it works. It takes ages. Especially if you're good. Hey, everyone will click on a youtube train wreck but something that's actually good is a harder sell.
But here's the thing, waiting isn't really about waiting. You can't spend your time endlessly checking your e-mail and voicemail for messages that may or may not come. You actually shouldn't be waiting at all. You should be writing a new song, recording a new upload, booking another audition and practicing your music. I can't promise that the offer you're dreaming of will happen, but I can promise that something will happen if you're making the effort and when things finally do start to happen, all that time you put in early on will pay off.
You need to keep this in mind when you see someone having what appears to be instant success. It wasn't instant. Chances are, they've put in years of work and waited a long ass time for that offer to happen. You just didn't see it because they weren't famous back then. You'll only rarely run into the person who can say "Oh her? yeah she was on the church choir since she was 10 and she sang at the donut shop every weekend all through college and it's so cool that she's finally broken through!"
And you should also know that sometimes offers take way more time than you think they should. The person with final say so was on vacation or they had planned to go in another direction at first or the budget numbers weren't crunching or they loved you but every single role you could play has been booked for five years in advance. This is how things happen. I cannot count the tantrums I've thrown and the tears I cried over gigs that I actually got. In some cases, I was even the first choice for them.
Now, I'm not saying that you should take this to mean that if you're not getting where you want to be, you should keep doing exactly what you're doing. There are times when changes do need to be made. I'm just saying that if you have all your ducks lined up, you still shouldn't get too excited about a duck dinner tonight because that meal might need a lot more time to cook.