Singers
often ask me if they are really only competing with themselves or whether they
are actually competing with all the other singers out there.
My answer? You need to think of it as developing yourself as a marketable artist, not competing with anybody else.
You are, or should be working every day to be the best you, you can be. You are learning how your voice works, what music presents you best, how to connect with your characters and your audience.
You are learning what clothes and hairstyles look best on you. You are living a healthy life style and making smart choices every day, which result in you being rested, energized, groomed, in shape, and looking your personal best.
You are learning what the business demands and you are making sure that you learn your music to a standard that industry professionals demand, not just what makes your Grandma happy. You are presenting yourself as a put-together professional with a unique personality not as a kid who is conforming to his or her peers.
You don’t book a role by being more like the character than the rest of those who audition, you book a role by finding the character within yourself and being that character in such a convincing way that those who hear you, cast you. You don’t win a competition by singing better than the other singers, you win by singing your music so well that the judges choose you!
No matter how much you focus on the “other” singers, you cannot be them and you cannot control what they do and who they are. Comparison just puts the focus on the wrong person!
If they are taller, louder, richer, über-prepared there is nothing you can do.
Comparing yourself with others also fosters resentment and that damages your ability to have good relationships with your colleagues which is certainly not helpful for your career.
The only thing you can do your best every day to become the artist that only you can be. If you have not put the work into you it is easy to focus your frustration outward but what you need to do is own up to the fact that you have not actually been doing your best. Whether you acheive your goals or not if you can say to yourself that you actually did everything you could to make things happen, you will be at peace with yourself.
Michelangelo thought that every block of stone had a statue inside it and it was the task of the sculptor to discover it.
“In every block of marble I see a statue as plain as though it stood before me, shaped and perfect in attitude and action. I have only to hew away the rough walls that imprison the lovely apparition to reveal it to the other eyes as mine see it.
My answer? You need to think of it as developing yourself as a marketable artist, not competing with anybody else.
You are, or should be working every day to be the best you, you can be. You are learning how your voice works, what music presents you best, how to connect with your characters and your audience.
You are learning what clothes and hairstyles look best on you. You are living a healthy life style and making smart choices every day, which result in you being rested, energized, groomed, in shape, and looking your personal best.
You are learning what the business demands and you are making sure that you learn your music to a standard that industry professionals demand, not just what makes your Grandma happy. You are presenting yourself as a put-together professional with a unique personality not as a kid who is conforming to his or her peers.
You don’t book a role by being more like the character than the rest of those who audition, you book a role by finding the character within yourself and being that character in such a convincing way that those who hear you, cast you. You don’t win a competition by singing better than the other singers, you win by singing your music so well that the judges choose you!
No matter how much you focus on the “other” singers, you cannot be them and you cannot control what they do and who they are. Comparison just puts the focus on the wrong person!
If they are taller, louder, richer, über-prepared there is nothing you can do.
Comparing yourself with others also fosters resentment and that damages your ability to have good relationships with your colleagues which is certainly not helpful for your career.
The only thing you can do your best every day to become the artist that only you can be. If you have not put the work into you it is easy to focus your frustration outward but what you need to do is own up to the fact that you have not actually been doing your best. Whether you acheive your goals or not if you can say to yourself that you actually did everything you could to make things happen, you will be at peace with yourself.
Michelangelo thought that every block of stone had a statue inside it and it was the task of the sculptor to discover it.
“In every block of marble I see a statue as plain as though it stood before me, shaped and perfect in attitude and action. I have only to hew away the rough walls that imprison the lovely apparition to reveal it to the other eyes as mine see it.
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