Change. We need it. Any person looking to improve themselves, grow as a person has to seek out change. Not for the sake of it perhaps, but change that is going to push them to take new steps and test their boundaries. It isn't enough to repeat the same exercises every day, or to always be in the same space even if we feel a gradual improvement. We need fresh air, not only in a literal sense, but to breathe fresh ideas and approaches into ourselves. We will never improve beyond a certain point if we accept the status quo.
I have been glad, and proud, to have stayed in my university city following graduation. I needed the time to cement my technique with my teacher. However, I have accepted that in fact, I'm not going to move past that, if I stay in the current situtation I am in. Not only does this mean leaving my day job, but it means a complete change of scenery. I have needed my teacher and will be eternally grateful for the groundwork that we have put in, but I am aware that I can only stay learning with her if I am prepared to stay living somewhere where I feel trapped as a person. Even though my singing has improved, I feel that it is time to take a leap, be somewhere compeltely different, and push myself more than I am currently. Ask more of myself. Be more than I already am.
At the moment I feel like I have plateaued - although at a higher level to where I was previously - and I want to move past this. I want to get to the point where I take risks and choices in performance that are brave, daring, exciting. I don't want to always be thinking about exactly how to sing a note perfectly, but to think only of what I am saying. I want to think only of the character and the expression of her feelings, and what colour she uses to nuance a phrase. I want to move past what I feel are still the basics and create art. I won't do that by staying still.
I have set down the basic building blocks. I have begun to trust that I will make a particular sound, I have begun to really relish the control that technique has given me. Now it is time to let go of that control, and to do that I am changing. See you down under!
