Wear Yourself Out

"Something you need to understand: Those who are engaged in a satisfying, full, adventurous sexual life are those least likely to talk about it, speculate upon it, analyze it, seek to understand it. They are living it. They are exhausted by it. They are grateful for it. They tend, I think, to protect it, like a secret that someone else may poke around looking for, tasting, using.

Those who are engaged in an acting life--using all of their skills, all of their emotions, working well with other fully realized people, are those least likely to talk about it, analyze it, theorize upon it.

The thing is--avoid theory and embrace experience. Run from rumination and throw yourself into expression.

Wear yourself out doing until you no longer can.

And when you no longer can, have enough discretion to not speak indiscriminately about all of those with whom you shared yourself.

Share just enough to urge others to wear themselves out."

Keep going, keep doing, keep moving. Teaching is great, but only if it is intertwined with practice.. I can't let myself get to heady about things :)

Define Yourself; Stay In The Moment

"We all become defined by our work. We are defined by how we do it and by how well we do it. But these definitions follow those we give to ourselves, and these definitions can be as deadly as a prison sentence if we aren't careful. This is why we have to be tough--ruthless, really--about what we are willing to do and by how diligent we are going to be in getting it right and earning our place in the world.

There has always been the tendency on the part of the untalented ambitious--a hardy and nefarious group--to find a way to be a part of the artistic working. You have to avoid this. You have to earn your place; you cannot merely create a place for yourself by being devoted to a particular art and being vocal about your homage.

Everything becomes cheapened, because suddenly you have people redefining what you love the most. 

Define yourself first. Long before anyone else will know you even exist, you will have decided how you shall be seen, so define yourself as serious and dedicated and selective. Define yourself as patient and detailed. Define yourself as an artist. Then wait to see if you've been correct." -EG

This one is pretty great. Hold yourself accountable for the work you produce- never half step. There truly isn't time for that. We must press, push, interrogate, investigate, rifle through all the baggage that might get in the way of being in the moment, right here, creating. 

The Voice, Specifically

This one from "Artistic Suicide" got me thinking... Especially after working one of my students musical theatre pieces:

"My particular obsession is with the voice. Everyone on the face of the earth has not only the voice by which they communicate words and sounds, but they have what I can only call a psychic or spiritual voice, which effects the timbre and the quality of the sounds they emit, not to mention the stories they tell. One’s voice is the means by which your soul gets let out to wander and play and finds friends to play with—if I were to put it on a really remedial level. The voice is not only auditory—it is literary. These very words I’m saying to you are coming through the voice that is working for me today. The cultivation and the husbanding of the voice is a lifelong habit and requirement. This is why I read and re-read things. I want to see how the writer got his soul around a particular obsession and then chose to share it through words orchestrated on a page. This is why I can’t be in a silent house for very long. I need music, so I can try to understand how composers and musicians transmitted a story through the tools at their command. This is why I become obsessed with singers, who are among our greatest storytellers. The name of the game is communication—not art. Art happens if you happen to be an artist. It cannot be forced. One can’t work at being an artist. One only works and prays that things work well. Ella Fitzgerald never got in the way of a song—it poured through her and rolled toward your feet like a warm wave. Hers was a seductive, trusting voice: She knew you would wait for it to wash up over your feet and ankles. Barbra Streisand is a great artist, but she has no trust: There are too many tricks and theatrical gestures that she feels she needs to keep you listening. Try listening to Streisand all afternoon. It won’t work. I can last about an hour, and then I’m tired. I’m tired for her and I’m tired for myself. Jo Stafford had a haunting quality—and nothing else. There wasn’t an actress inside of her—an artist—to throw the story, like a javelin of chords, across a wide path. Stafford worked a small piece of property, and it was nice, but it was small. If you were to somehow place one’s most comfortable chair in the most extraordinary chapel, a building with the most remarkable acoustics and the grandest organ on earth, and if you were to wear your most comfortable clothes and stretch back and desire the most organic and the clearest means of telling a story through song, you would find someone like Kaye Ballard. Kaye Ballard can sing in a basement or on Broadway or on a gaudy television program, and it is crystal clear and confident: It is a master storyteller telling you a story. She never gets in the way of her songs either. She doesn’t just work a big piece of property: She lifts you very high over it all so you get a great view. I have listened to her on albums with composers in the room, and they can tell me what she’s doing; what the instrument is doing. This I don’t know or understand. I’m here to take my particular obsession—my story—and take the words that fly down to me from some mysterious place and land on my pale judgment and make them move and shimmer and communicate the way those chords and beautiful sounds do. I told you I’m moved by strings in music, and Kaye Ballard has strings in her voice, which is to say emotion. No matter how funny she can be, there is something huge at stake when she sings. There is talent on the line, and it’s flying high and its hunting for the hungry audience that needs her."

It seems to me that with enough exposure to anything, one begins to develop a taste, sight or hearing for their art form. I was told once, while having a rough voice session, that my coach Susan Sweeney had a extremely refined palette for the human voice. They likened it to tasting a fine whiskey- only the experienced connoisseur could detect the subtle tones, smoothness and fragrances of a single barrel variety. Analysis of human behavior is so damn interesting :)