Even on Difficult Days, the Craft Holds
Yesterday, I had to deliver a performance feeling vocally far from my best.
It is never a particularly comfortable feeling for a singer. You know what you are capable of, you know how the voice normally feels, and then suddenly things don't seem to be quite where you expect them to be. Of course, the mind starts working. Will the voice come back? Will I be able to sing what I have planned? Will the audience notice?
I didn't have much sleep the night before, and that is the one thing that really makes my voice croaky.
I spent an hour warming it up, trying to iron out the wrinkles in the famous - or infamous - passaggio area, but it still didn't feel right.
Before starting, I apologised in advance to my audience in case my voice sounded feeble or, worse, it cracked.
But this is where experience becomes important. Once I started singing, the voice began to settle. I stopped thinking about how it felt and concentrated on what I was there to do: communicate, tell the story and give the audience the best performance I could. And I managed to deliver a great performance anyway. Even the unforgiving test of the high C in Che gelida manina was met successfully, and I was met with lots of praise.
This reminded me that there is a difference between confidence and reliability. Confidence can disappear surprisingly quickly. Tiredness, nerves, or simply not feeling quite yourself can make you question things that you normally take for granted.
Craft is different. It is built over years of work, repetition, mistakes, experience and learning to trust your technique. It doesn't mean that every performance will be perfect, but it gives you something to rely on when you are not feeling at your best.
Perhaps that is one of the privileges of doing something for many years. You begin to understand that you don't have to feel invincible to do your job well. Sometimes you simply have to trust the work you have put in.
Yesterday wasn't a perfect day vocally, but the performance was good. And I came away reminded of something that is easy to forget: even on difficult days, the craft holds.
Skill isn’t just what you can do when you feel great. It’s what you can deliver even on difficult days.
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