Podcast with guitarist and guitar teacher Vincent Janse
We talked about the mental side of performing. In front of an online audience of mostly his students, we discussed the mistakes we made early in our career and what our students can do about this.
Vincent Janse is a band leader (Vinnie's Vice), blues guitarist and founder of Vinnies Gittar School.
Transcription
This is an automatically generated transcription, which explains some typos or strange words. But I hope it helps as a rough guide to the above video.
00:00:01
Vincent: [Has just told a story (in Dutch) of how he was often very hesitant to accept compliments after a show. He would say to himself: ’Yeah, but Stevie Ray Vaughn is better’.]
This is my story of not being good enough.
00:00:05
Linor: Can I ask something about this?
00:00:09
Linor: You said that it brought you down. What way do you think it brought down? Did it actually bring also your your guitar level down, and like your actual playing level?
00:00:24
Vincent: Yeah. Because if I approach it more like having fun and good because not being good enough. Basically means that I care about what other people think. If you don't care, then you're more free. To play, to take risks and to be more in the moment and to accept. What I mean in your head. There are always like thousand things that go wrong because, you know. What you could do. But in that moment, you cannot or you're not able yet. It's not your day or you have an off day. Whatever. So that that the pulls it down.
00:01:23
Vincent: Yeah.
00:01:32
Linor: Yes.
00:01:33
Linor: So, yeah, I can also tell a story. Basically, when one of the biggest mistakes I've ever made in my singing life. Um, well, I was training for about. I think eight years, seven or eight years, and then came from Israel to Berlin, found a very good teacher and started working with her. And I thought that that was OK. I thought I like my my level was good. Of course, you can always be better, but I got a lot of good feedback from the college where I was studying, so I thought I was doing great. And then I came to that teacher and she showed me. In the lesson. Basically what my voice can sound like. And it was not in the same universe. So basically. Like quadrupled the amount of power and volume and richness. An easiness of the voice. And, of course, you know, in the lesson, it's momentary things. She gives me a trick. She will be experimenting and suddenly it's like where? And I realize o fuck, I don't know anything. That's basically what my first conclusion was. I don't know any set anything I. I thought I could sing, but I can't. I need to get this now. So it's a little bit like what you're saying. Like whatever I was until then, that's not gonna be good enough for anything. So basically I'm not gonna step on stage again until I reach that level. And I shut the door in my practice room. I started practicing. I went to lessons and that's all I've been doing for two years. So for two years, I did not audition. I didn't perform. I think I send one song at a friend's wedding. That's what I said. And I sing in workshops with my colleagues when we were all students, which basically means I was in a student mode for two years without any experience, without any additional experience on stage. That turned out to be the worst thing that I've done because I had. I should have known then because I come from a place of very, very bad stage fright. So I know. What it's like to be on stage and that it's not the same sort of singing, it's not the same abilities. So what happened after two years when I started auditioning again? I was a beginner again. So it took me two years to sort of start being happy with the results that are coming out. And I thought, OK, now I can, you know, maybe go in and show that to people and, you know, get some jobs. But I forgot about that fact that on stage you don't really demonstrate all of your abilities 100 percent. You know, if you're lucky, it's 80 percent. And if you haven't done that for two years, then it's like 50 percent. So it felt like I was not really showing my new level at all. So I really felt like a beginner again. And and. Two, to mix it with a little other mistake, which is that I kept being negative in my practice, in my. It really reminds me of your story, actually. I wouldn't really take credit at that point, at that period of my life for anything. It was never good. And if I if I achieved something, I would be happy about it. But I would immediately say, OK, well, I need this to be consistent. And also, I need all those other things. And then, you know, I'll be happy. So that net never caused that stage never came. So in this whole mentality, becoming bigger again after two years of the hardest work and really finally feeling like I achieved something that put me down horribly. So that introduced new frustrations. And yeah, it was break and it was heartbreaking.
00:06:36
Linor: I can't really describe it otherwise. So, yeah, I had to basically start all over again.
00:06:46
Linor: I had to practice auditioning and practicing, singing on stage, singing for other people and getting better at that. And at the same time, also keep improving my voice, because you always have to do that. And that was really, really hard. And but that at that point, I was already two years older, which is, you know, shouldn't be a problem. But that's another mistake that I had put it when I was thinking about my age all the time and how I'm too old for things. So that didn't help. Yeah. So that's what I did.
00:07:23
Vincent: And did you tell your your teacher at a time? Did she or he know that you that you were dealing with this?
00:07:35
Linor: I don't think so. Maybe I did. Maybe I did. But my teacher was very clear always that she is not a shrink. And that's your job. Yeah. Which was to teach you voice. And then if you have problems, you go to a shrink. Yeah. I mean, she would you know, she would hear me out, but she would just say, you know.
00:07:58
Linor: Don't worry about it.
00:08:01
Linor: You know, you have to work on that or whatever. I don't really remember us having a serious conversation about that. But my my teacher was very. Like one way. Working on on that on the voice quality aspect, she was not even she was not even into performance or like the body work or all the things that I'm trying to integrate in my lessons, because I know that one cannot do without the other. She would just send me to another teacher to work on that. Yeah. So she had one thing, you know, that she would do, she would do it may well, but.
00:08:46
Linor: Yeah, yeah.
00:08:50
Vincent: Well, from a teachers point of view, it's it's really great if you if you can achieve with a student to open the voice.
00:09:00
Vincent: And, you know, so that's that's really a great achievement. And yet it still had that powerful negative reaction.
00:09:09
Linor: So, yeah, because. Because It's a very intimate thing.
00:09:16
Vincent: Exactly. Yeah, and that makes probably singing even more than playing guitar because you have a guitar in front of you. So that's that's it's. Yeah, that's that's. It's it's really a total thing. Everything comes together.
00:09:38
Linor: Yes. And as you say, it can have a really positive effect, it can be therapeutic and make you feel a lot better, but it can also make you feel like negative feelings more intensely. Because you're opening yourself up completely. That's the goal of.
00:09:59
Vincent: Yeah. It can be very overwhelming.
00:10:04
Linor: Oh, yeah, yeah, I know.
00:10:08
Linor: I think in for my call.
00:10:10
Vincent: I don't know many who didn't cry at some point, but some others.
00:10:21
Vincent: I can't see them. Look, don't listen, Luke. Don't listen, no, because you're just go through about it. It because everything but my. When I wasn't good 17, I was feeling so small every day, every day, every day. And so am I. My teachers were. Well, they were good guitar players.
00:10:46
Vincent: Well. Not even.
00:10:50
Vincent: I remember. It was very I probably was very good or well known because otherwise she won't make it to the to the guitar department.
00:11:01
Vincent: But.
00:11:04
Vincent: I do not like his playing. I didn't. I didn't get it. I didn't. You know, what he was doing was, I don't know, a teacher. I just didn't get it. I was a blues player and they were playing jazz and I just didn't get it. And. Years later in Amsterdam, I met EHF always, who is a very well known, one of the best Dutch guitar players. And. It all became clear because I had a Volvo misplaying.
00:11:42
Vincent: And I understood that it was clear it was absolutely wonderful. Good timing, good, great phrasing. Everything was their personality, everything. But I also knew instantly I ask him also because I wanted to know if I was right about it. I asked him, did that teacher study with you? He said, Yeah. He was my student. I said, yeah. He was my teacher. But I like your playing better. He says. Yeah, yeah, I can understand that. So.
00:12:22
Vincent: My teacher was just copying someone.
00:12:25
Linor: And that's a that could be maybe like a general mistake that teachers make one day, but they're not clear for the student. When they just they display their, you know, abilities and how good they are.
00:12:46
Vincent: Exactly.
00:12:47
Linor: But that's not accessible. So so that student doesn't know how do I get from where I am to this?
00:12:56
Linor: Yeah.
00:12:58
Vincent: And you know, I just told you that that I have that basic feeling, of not being good enough.
00:13:04
Vincent: And that only, you know, it feeds to it. It.
00:13:09
Linor: Yeah.
00:13:13
Vincent: So, yeah.
00:13:15
Vincent: I'll tell you another story about about the students, I won't mention his name, but he I have his permission. So.
00:13:28
Vincent: I had a young student and. Basically is the same thing.
00:13:36
Vincent: And all of a sudden he said, I want to go to conservatory. And he started working very hard. And instead of taking 20 minutes of lessons in two weeks, he got one hour every week. Then he game two. So fashion integrity lessons. So had training. In theory, he didn't like it. I know because I discussed it with him and I saw it. Although I thought he benefits from it. But that was not his. Is he Dennis Phelps feel this way, but he did it because he wanted to go to conservatory. I also gave him band coaching and he had a band with a great drummer. I was a friend of him and he worked his ass off.
00:14:25
Vincent: His mom told me and told me several points he was on when he came home.
00:14:29
Vincent: He went in his room playing guitar. Everything was talky, takita.
00:14:36
Vincent: He had some great weeks as some great places.
00:14:42
Vincent: People start talking about him.
00:14:47
Vincent: So it all and good. Put a lot of effort in it, but.
00:14:53
Vincent: And then all of a sudden by the end of the summer break, I was summer in Czech Republic or whatever, you sent me a text message and said I quit. I quit a band coaching. I quit. So fashion theory and.
00:15:14
Vincent: But I will continue doing guitar lessons. And I was shocked.
00:15:21
Vincent: Small, just small text, and I ask him, are you sure? And he said, yes. By the time I was about fifteen, fifteen years old.
00:15:33
Vincent: So I sold my guitar lessons and we didn't talk about it much. I try to, but, you know, it was a no go issue.
00:15:44
Vincent: And after a few weeks.
00:15:48
Vincent: He said.
00:15:50
Vincent: I went to a conservatory. I saw people play. And I know for sure I cannot make this level. I'm not good enough.
00:16:04
Vincent: He said in a way that he was very sure about it. And I wanted to do something else.
00:16:12
Vincent: So the whole conservative thing was off.
00:16:19
Vincent: And that was a relief. And he started from that moment, he started to play better and better and better. And then I had a lesson.
00:16:26
Vincent: I remember I was at a piano. I'm not a pianist. I could just play some chords. And he went crazy, starts soloing and he went off and he was free of flying.
00:16:36
Vincent: And he had fun. He had so much fun. And when he was done, he said, yeah, this was good. And I smile at him. I said. You know what you said about, you know, like a few months ago after summer break. And then his whole face a far. Yes, I remember. Wow, those those two feelings are just so far away from each other. So.
00:17:12
Vincent: That was really a breakthrough. William.
00:17:15
Vincent: Even if you're very I mean, I think we all have that if you work very hard and especially into music, because it is very porous, personal, very, very personal. So if you're if you're not having your.
00:17:31
Vincent: You don't have an off there. You don't have an off week, maybe a month or maybe even an off year, and you start doubting.
00:17:38
Vincent: And so, yeah, that's that can be very, very hard. But to see his face move from being so excited into oh, Jesus. I know, I know what I felt. And I know that, you know, it can change. Everything can change.
00:17:58
Vincent: And how he stopped himself and how he stopped himself and not believe that's good enough. And maybe he wasn't good enough yet. To go to conservatory. And then again. Do you have to go to conservatory to be a good decision?
00:18:20
Linor: I don't know.
00:18:23
Linor: I think there are enough examples in the world to suggest that not necessarily.
00:18:30
Vincent: Joe Cocker didn't go to conservatory. Jimi Hendrix didn't either.
00:18:39
Vincent: Yeah, yeah. Well, I don't know the details, so I don't know. I'm a way on your territory, you know?
00:18:49
Linor: Well, yeah, you know that that's a that's a different topic. You you of Madonna's. She had a good moments, but she's not the best singer in the world. And yet, in a way, she is. So she doesn't need our approval. Let's just say it like that.
00:19:07
Vincent: That's for sure.
00:19:08
Linor: And that's, uh. Yeah. That's something else. That's food for thought. Maybe that's also food for another masterclass. Yeah. But that actually that connects a little bit to the next story that I have. What's the mentality or the way you perceive yourself? But, uh, yeah. Someone like. Madonna, like today, she's still on stage. And. Her vocals are very, very limited. To say the least, and she's still, you know, she's still Madonna. So. That feeds into the not caring thing. And then just, you know, if you decide basically that you're a professional. Then you have you all you have a chance. If you decide that you're not that you're not good enough, that you're not a professional. You will always be the what I call the student mode. And that's not good enough for the state for sure. And just that mentality is what at the end of the day makes a difference between a professional and amateur. But that that mentality, that negativity is something that I have more experience with most my life. And that's something that, you know, it's very, very common. Most people are very critical of themselves, and especially when it comes to singing. For some reason, but I think it's it it's like that in music if you decide that you want to. Take your music seriously. Suddenly it becomes from this, you know, great passion to a great burden because you just. Yeah. You should you just. How to say there's like so many people choose to go through that journey, making it more difficult on themselves. Maybe because they think it will help. If I'm hard on myself, I have high standards, then I will get very far. But the opposite is the case. Like, you're going to get enough hardship in music as it is. And what you don't need is your own negative thoughts. They basically are just down to earth. I'm talking like, really straightforward. They're just a waste of time. So they're not helping you at all. And to give an example, I want I also use a student. Of course, anonymously. I have this student who is middle age woman and she has studied before, she met me for about a decade. So she started 10 years with other teachers and she wanted to be an opera singer, not necessarily a professional one, but she wanted to reach a professional level. And when she reached out to me, she basically said the main thing that is on my mind now is that I don't understand how that happened. How did I spend 10 years trying to get my voice to a professional level and a mother? I'm like not professional at all. I'm not like you, not even close. And then we started on lessons and I very quickly realized, you know, just the technical issues. I realized what happened. And probably her teachers didn't didn't teach her. Correctly. But that's, you know, very unfortunate. But that's just that was one part of it. The other part was that she would spend most of the lesson. Just asking those big questions. So I want to sound like the singer. How hard? How does she do that? Like, how does she have this effortless like. And when I try to sing in this octave, it never works. So why why is that? And or, you know, I want you know, I want to sing in this style. Is my voice like that? Is it suitable for this kind of style? Just like. Well, I don't know, honey, because. We haven't freed the voice yet. We don't know what the voice is capable of. It's like, OK, OK, I get it. And then she would ask more and more those existential questions like. Why can I? Why can I not sing properly in front of people, why can I? So what? She was basically spends, like, wasting the time of the actual lesson. But then I also realized that at home, like and she had all the intention of getting to a professional level. This is her dream. Still is. But instead of, you know, going home and doing what the teacher says and practicing, you know, what the teacher recommended. And I gave her a very clear plan and very, very focused instructions. She would, you know, keep sending me, you know, those those questions. You know, maybe on the next lesson, we can analyze this video and you can tell me how they do that, because I don't know if my you know, if I can do that as well. Yeah. So that is basically it was a whole mess on her head. And she was not actually doing the thing. She was busy worrying. When will I get there to like my goal? And how do I get there and why can't I get there? And she couldn't get over that. And, you know, it bothered me a lot, especially because I recognized that myself. So as I said before, I guess if I would, you know, for example, just. Just an example, get, you know, get better at closing my vocal chords, right? I have more chest resonance, actually. Like a chest voice. I got that a little bit better. And then it was said. Yeah. But. OK. How how do I do that in the press style? Because opera style, you have to have desk, chest and head and you have to mix them up all the time. So I can't use the chest voice like that all the time. Right.
00:26:02
Linor: But.
00:26:03
Linor: But no, I should. Yeah, I should do that first. Establish that. And then learn how to combine that with the other things. But I was already worrying about how am I going to get the perfect. The final product. And in general, like, I wouldn't I would work. I work for a colleague once, and she was closer to my age, closer to my level, but a little bit more advanced. So I asked her all those tricks that we do in this, you know, in the school that we are. We both studied with the same teachers. All those tricks, you know, they work magic, right? But eventually, you know, you want to just stand up and sing. You're not going to do the tricks. It's just. Is that just going to come automatically? When is it going to come automatically? And she said, yeah, eventually comes automatically. No, it doesn't. But never mind, she said. Yeah, yeah. It comes ultimate. No. You learn something, you learn what it does and you learn it well enough that you can do it without the trick. But that has to be a process on its own when you don't focus on anything else. And that's something that I just couldn't couldn't do. I didn't know how. And that that made my process a lot longer than it should have been.
00:27:36
Vincent: Yeah, I can totally relate to that moment that I decided to to leave that voice out of my head. That that that that I should be better. I should be there. I am I am already attracting for 10 years, whatever, blah, blah, blah. And I, I decided, OK, let's just.
00:28:00
Vincent: Focus on one thing and one thing only. And whenever I get in that kind of anxious state or maybe slightly panic stake state, that's OK. I'm going to to focus for. Two months or three months on only this issue.
00:28:26
Vincent: And that's where the magic that is devils, where the magic happens for me now.
00:28:30
Linor: That's that's really curious. Like what made you decide that?
00:28:35
Vincent: Oh. I told the title story in another masterclass already. But in short. Scott Henderson is a guitar player and I admire a lot. And I think he's one of the best guitar players in the world, and especially at that time. And I had a private conversation with him. I was in the backseat of a car together with him for about two and a half hours. And he said to me, he looked me in the eye. He said, if you do this and he names a very simple exercise if you do that. And he told me and I still can remember those words. Exactly. This is a quote, practice this. You'll be light years ahead of guys who didn't do it. My first reaction was, OK, Scott, I know your, in my opinion, point of view, the best guitar player in the world. But I don't know if you notice, I already did conservatory, all of it. And then that very tiny voice in my head said, OK, Vincent, that's that's very true. You already did a lot of years of practicing. You went to conservatory, blah, blah, blah. But you're not really satisfied about your playing, are you? Just give it a chance. Next day. I went outside my house. It was a sunny day. I wasn't a chair. Putting my gates are. And I did that exercise. And in a few seconds, I start crying like a baby because I realize that this is what I. This is what I wanted to do this. I knew. I knew right there. Just practice this. You'll be light years ahead of guys who didn't do it. I had to do it. The only task I had to do right there is practice this every day. Every single day of my life. Because that's where the inside of the guitar was. And the funny thing is that I start practicing. And then I wrote him an email and I set about an exercise that you told me about yesterday, by the way, which I thought was too simple for me. Can I simplify it? Because I think it's too hard to do. And you said, yes, sure, that's no problem. You won't get that richness if you put other notes in it. But, yes, sure, start with that. So I already. Changes into my exercise. And I can tell you, I did that a long time and I didn't see him for four year and a half.
00:31:32
Vincent: And when I saw him, he was blown away. He told me what happened. So I just I just told you I just did what you told me to do.
00:31:42
Vincent: I was focusing on one very tiny detail. I was only playing a G-7. I was breaking the cordon, G.B., the F that with it. Now we're trying to pick all the notes on the on the.
00:32:00
Linor: All right.
00:32:03
Vincent: But it seems like it took a master.
00:32:08
Vincent: It took a master to tell me that.
00:32:12
Vincent: So, yes.
00:32:18
Vincent: Yeah, devils, devils, my. So. I think it's the same story. Just get that voice out of your hat and focus on one tiny little detail.
00:32:32
Vincent: And have fun at the same time.
00:32:36
Linor: It is fun, though. There is nothing really. I'm I'm not joking. There's nothing more fun than actually getting some results.
00:32:47
Linor: If you just if you just scattered and you're doing one thing and then you jump to another thing, and then you try to put them both together and then you try to add a few more things.
00:32:59
Linor: You're not going to be satisfied. It's not going to be fun. It's going to be frustrating. You're gonna bang your head against the wall. And, of course, talking from experience. So when you do that one thing, you after a while, you starting to get it. And then you start seeing light.
00:33:21
Vincent: You start feeling normal.
00:33:24
Linor: Yeah. They're just like, OK. I think I can handle that. Now, if you want to eventually go on stage, what? Whether you're a professional or not. You need to also be able to put yourself in a different mentality than I still have so much to learn because there is something healthy about that ball knowing that you can always get better. And, you know, Vincent said that he is still a student. That's you know, that's a very constructive thing. Yeah, if you think that you know everything. It's probably not going to get you far. On the other hand, when you're about to go on stage, that's done mentality is not going to help because you're going to think, oh, I'm just, you know, incapable of doing so many things. I'm just a student. You know, I'm not good enough and nobody wants to see that. So you should you should work on sort of like a switch in mentality before a performance. Which is what I have right now is not just good enough. It's really exactly what I need. That's what the audience came to see and pay one hundred and fifty and fifty euro tickets for. And that kind of mentality will probably also make your performance better in any like in any aspect. So that's just, you know, a little just a little tip here.
00:35:06
Vincent: Now, that works and it also works. It helps working on that. You can't you can teach yourself at home. Seeing yourself in that kind of situation that you are in your favorite venue, which is packed and they all come to see you. Yes.
00:35:36
Linor: And being super enthusiastic and into it. And that's it.
00:35:41
Vincent: Yeah, that's a self-fulfilling prophecy because I guess you just just a little bit more of a drive. Never having said that, you know, if you have also.
00:35:58
Vincent: The technical abilities to do that. And that is why you you, you.
00:36:04
Vincent: Have to study every day, or at least as much as possible to to drill all those technical elements in.
00:36:12
Vincent: So you're free to to express yourself.
00:36:18
Linor: Yes. Yes.
00:36:19
Vincent: It's like we do. It's like we're doing now, you know, we're with we're talking and we prepared a little bit.
00:36:26
Vincent: And but we master the language and that's why we can communicate. That's that's that's why we can drive in this this this conversation. And.
00:36:37
Vincent: And it's hopefully. Great to listen to, you know.
00:36:45
Vincent: So I should do that on stage with your band. And you're just with your friends. And having fun. While having prepared all the other stuff. But what can go wrong?
00:37:03
Vincent: That's definitely a good recipe. When other brain surgeons, if we do something wrong, the patient doesn't die. Know only the ego will hurt a little bit. But hey.
00:37:17
Linor: It will probably hurt less than them. You know, the damage we did to it in the past regardless. Yeah. Probably some this this way you have an actual chance of having a good performance.
00:37:37
Vincent: I would check some charts and maybe you can, because I want to give you guys another just another little task. Mark says. Four. That means you have one, two, three already or Derice. I don't know, maybe I missed something. Everyday I play. I make progress. Good. As long as I have that feeling, it's OK. Yeah.
00:38:09
Linor: That's really productive. Yes. But don't be discouraged if you have an off day here and there. It's that from.
00:38:21
Vincent: Martin says, I think that you have to be yourself and realize that it is really fun to make music and it's nice that you can enjoy people with your playing. Yeah.
00:38:32
Vincent: Yeah.
00:38:34
Vincent: I once had a guy in the audience, he was a poet and.
00:38:41
Vincent: He told me something simple and he said.
00:38:45
Vincent: Wouldn't it be nice if there's just one guy in his audience who goes home after seeing your show?
00:38:53
Vincent: And.
00:38:55
Vincent: He had maybe a fight with his wife or girlfriend, but now he has that a lot of positive energy and he just even if it's just for five minutes, he's nicer to his wife or girlfriend.
00:39:12
Vincent: I mean, that's great, right?
00:39:17
Vincent: And that's a small contribution that we can do. I remember I was told by Scott Henderson. He came. In Holland. And he opened my school 10 years ago.
00:39:30
Vincent: And he did a workshop that was by far the best workshop I've ever seen. And the house was packed and everybody was so positive. He rocked the Gests guys who were there. By playing stuff and I had a students, a teacher from conservatory. He was down and he was hit.
00:39:51
Vincent: His jaw dropped on the floor. And he called me up the day after. These that I still cannot believe what I saw. This was the best thing I've ever seen.
00:40:01
Vincent: And. When he.
00:40:05
Vincent: And that that phrase that thing in his in his workshop, that was a guy's head. Yeah. There's a lot of jazz. Do you know some blues stuff as well? And he start playing Led Zeppelin and all the rock and blues guys were like, what the fuck just happened? And when we drove away. We just we just left the building and he said to me, yeah, when I'm back in the USA after the store, I think I'm going to see that teacher in New York again.
00:40:44
Vincent: Then I realized.
00:40:48
Vincent: Also, you want to get better every time. You are never, never satisfied in a way that. I don't know. Maybe he, too, is not comfortable in his playing. It's what he told me last.
00:41:03
Vincent: Yeah, I think I'm a kind of level that I never really ever suck big time.
00:41:11
Linor: And so look what.
00:41:18
Linor: Yeah, that the best, the very best. Whenever I hear them, they always say, I never think it's good. I was thinking it can be better. Yeah. The point is they don't let that waste their time.
00:41:36
Vincent: Yeah. And it maybe triggers you to get better. There's another story I want to share with you. It's kind of a hard story. I mean, it's it's.
00:41:50
Vincent: It's a very sad story, but I learned a lot from it. When I started my school. I I wanted to focus on students. That are really into music.
00:42:11
Linor: I can maybe tell something that is a less heavy and just could be maybe a motivator or food for thought for people who want to be professionals. I know there are quite a few you. Something that I didn't realize while training to be a professional singer. So that basically my my dream was to be a professional opera singer. And the idea that I had to do that is to get a bunch of lessons, get really good at singing and then audition like crazy and someone will give me a job. That's not how it works in the music business. That's not how it works in show business. And in general, an opera apparently is no different than the just any kind of show business. If you are if you're an artist and specifically if you're a musician, you are. Product. You are your own brand, so to speak, and to be successful. You can get discovered right away and be a Cinderella story, but that's probably not going to happen. So what's more, more probable to happen is that you will establish what makes you special. You will establish skills that you need to have, as I'm sorry to say that as a business person, because you need to be a business person if you want to succeed in show business. And I did not know that or I did not want to know that. There are so many skills that I needed to have back then when I was trying to get into the market and I didn't have them. And as a result of that, the struggle to get into the market was. Excruciating. And eventually I got very little back for a very, very. For a lot of effort, and so am I. I gave everything I had, I gave all my finances, all of my time, all of my energy was put into trying basically to make it in the business. And I got some projects and I got to sing a little bit. But eventually.
00:44:55
Vincent: I was struck out, so I was not.
00:45:00
Linor: It was not for me physically, because the way I was back then, I was not that kind of brand. I was not the kind of business person that I was suppose to be. So just to list a few things that, you know, that I was really, really bad at, and that was really at my expense, literally. And it was, first of all, finances. Yes, I felt artist. They don't have to be good at finances. They don't have to care about money at all. They just have to do the art. No, because everything in your art will cost you money before it will make you money. So if it's, you know, recording your own demos, if he's getting your lessons, if it's going, you know, for auditioning, travelling, anything that the photo shoots, whatever. These are things that you need. You just need that if you want. Eventually, if you want to go on and display yourself on on the market and hopefully, you know, get hired or get, you know. Get going. So knowing how to manage your finances. Is important. Very, very important, not to mention the fact that, you know, if you're if you're a musician, you're probably going to be at least some of the time freelance. Which means, you know, you're going to have to worry about what happens when you retire and so on. So, yeah, you need to know that you know that stuff so you can channel basically you can channel your resources accordingly. The other thing is that you know that making yourself a brand. That's something that that's a skill that I didn't have. This is basically it comes down to marketing and it sounds I know it sounded to me back then as something really boring. And I hated that. I was like, I'm not a business person. I just I don't I don't do that. I just sing. So good luck. Not really. Because if you are going to. Hopefully know look for an agent or look for, you know, go audition into into theatres or whatever. I don't know how it goes with guitars where you audition, but whatever it is that you're trying to get into. Basically what you're saying is that you're trying to. You're hoping that somebody will give you your success and.
00:48:04
Linor: Well.
00:48:06
Linor: It's up to them then it's not in your control. If you work on being your own brand, that means that you make sure that you have materials of your own and you have recordings of your own. You have a Web site. You have your initiating concerts for yourself. That, you know, basically that, first of all, that makes you. Active. And second of all, that gives you something to show for one, eventually, you know, hopefully somebody will hear that and will like that. But just going in and auditioning is not good enough. You need to have an established. So like archive or profile to show for, and you need to keep yourself active. If other people are not going to give it to you, otherwise, it's spiraling down from there. So they don't want to give it to you because they didn't see you perform anywhere. And then you're not performing anywhere. So nobody else gonna want to give it to you either. And then you get also less good at performing in general. And just that that's just no good. So marketing finances and. Yeah, and the most important thing was eventually I got and when I got the principal, that also got me some jobs. That was the maintaining connections. So it's way more important than reaching out to. A venue and going in and displaying your talent there and hoping to get a job. If you know people and you know, friendships, of course, are much better than just connections, just knowing someone and asking them for favors, that's really not not necessarily how it works. Like, you know, someone. And then you ask them, can you get me jobs? But if you are on the front mind of people. Then eventually, you know, someone will be somewhere and they will know that there is a vacancy. They were looking for the tasks and then I will say, yeah, I know this guy or girl, you should check them out. And so really, really how it works. Most of the time. So, you know, that's just something that that you do you have to do. You have to be in touch with people from the. From the industry and preferably, you know, maintain good connections and friendships. And. Yeah, and just be be in it. Don't don't try. Sort of like and poke holes in that in the wall of the market and like, bad, you know. Can somebody please. Give me something. But just be there. Be present. Be present for the with people, with other people who do that collab with other people. And, you know, and be active and be a brand. That's basically what I'm saying. Had I known all that and I had all those kids fifteen years ago, then I would probably not have the life that I have right now, which I'm not. I'm really happy with my life. By the way, I'm gonna be OK. That's the that's the bottom line. But I would probably be more successful singing wise, like I would be singing a lot more than I do now.
