Superpower Activated

I have a pretty awesome superpower…

Wanna know what it is??

My superpower is the ability to learn music really. really. REALLY. FAST!

This past week, I learned Acts I and II of Carmen - that’s half the opera!

Honestly, it’s just a skill I’ve developed over time. When I was doing my undergrad at Berklee, it was expected that when you were assigned a piece of music, that you come back to your next class/lesson with it learned. Musicians who work in commercial music develop an astounding ability to pick up music on the fly, and I didn’t realize this was unusual for classical musicians until I got to graduate school and started noticing I was singing a LOT more rep than my classmates.

To be clear: I am NOT throwing shade on my colleagues, and the rate at which I learn music isn’t always a good thing. I had a friend in graduate school who would tear every piece she learned into its separate components, learn each component separately, and then reassemble the pieces. It took her FOREVER to learn her music, but once she did, it was always there, and her performance was incredibly consistent. By contrast, I could learn music very quickly, but I didn’t have a system, and as a result, my performances were sometimes inconsistent. I had a teacher for a while who used to get after me because I would learn my music so fast, I consistently failed to learn it with good technique (oops).

Thankfully, I have figured out how to develop this skill in such a way that I am now able to learn music with more intention. I have a process, and it means I’ve been able to speed up the process if needed, and also to now learn my music with good technique and so that I can access the information to sing said music in a consistent way.

There is no secret sauce. I simply schedule my practicing in a very detailed way.

With a big project like Carmen, I make a list of every section I need to learn. For shorter pieces, I divide them into sections,

My schedule for learning Carmen

Then, I sit down with my calendar and decide exactly what I’m going to learn and when I’m going to learn it. You can see my schedule above! Depending on how much time I have, I’ll break down the learning into text and music. For Carmen, I’m squishing all of it together for now so I can refine it later. Do I have to do it this way? No, but I find it useful to exercise this skill so that when I DO need to learn something really fast (such as when I’ve had to step into a production on short notice), that skill isn’t rusty. So I’ve spent my three hours per day this past week learning the first two acts of Carmen.

Checking in on last week’s to-do list…

• Continue finesse work on competition rep (done!)

• Set a recording date for said competition rep (not done…I really need to get on this!)

• Map out a plan for learning Carmen, and start learning (check, and double check!)

• Read at least two chapters of Audition Success (I read one chapter, so progress, but I wouldn’t call this done)

So this week, here is my list:

• Set a dang recording date!!!

• Stick to my Carmen plan - everything will be learned by this time next week, and I’ll be reviewing!

• Read at least two chapters of Audition Success (for real this time)

• Remember that cello piece I need to play? I should probably practice that too….

Ok, I want to know….what’s your superpower??