Reasonable Expectations #1

This one goes out to the many young singers who feel destined for the stage!

Let’s take a candid look at your practice schedule...... how much do you actually sing?

Consider for a moment the hours of a full-time job. On average, 40 hours per week. For the sake of argument, let’s halve that, so 20 hours only. Let’s include the weekend to avoid singing 4 hours per day across a 5-day workweek. So, 7 days of singing a little less than three hours a day.

Now, ask yourself if you sing 3 hours a day, or 2, or even one full hour..... I will, of course, grant you, that a sizeable chunk of the job is spent in the studying of the score and the text. Nevertheless, if you consider your physical skill the basis of your career, it would behoove you to consider how many hours athletes put into theirs. Italian schools of singing from the 16 and 1700s are reported to have had rigorous training that included as much as 4 hours of vocalizing and repertoire practice. Whether this is ill-advised or otherwise, it is food for thought when reflecting on one’s own practice habits.

If you are finding that you struggle to find practice time, create or maintain a practice schedule, or struggle to keep yourself engaged in your vocalism sufficiently to rack up a respectable number of practice hours a week, it might be time to do some serious evaluation of your final goals in singing.