Balancing Joy and Career Growth with Marissa Bloom
1. Practice better, not longer.
Don’t beat up your voice practicing the same thing over an over again until you’re exhausted and hoarse and just drilling in bad mistakes. A few minutes of focused, intense study are worth more than an hour spent in the practice room staring at your phone while you sing.2. Don’t pigeonhole yourself into one genre.
Be open to exploring new outlets and letting yourself enjoy all aspects of your voice. Singing musical theatre, or jazz, or pop, or gospel won’t wreck your classical voice. It can only enhance and add color options and ideas.3. Never lose the joy of singing for the sake of singing.
Truthfully, for so many years I put so much pressure on myself to be perfect that I lost all joy in just singing. Several years ago, I started doing “Tuneful Tuesday” where I recorded and shared one song a week ranging from pop music to jazz standards to art songs to arias to Disney songs and folk songs. I post my first take, mistakes and all, and it’s really made singing fun again and taken some of the “performance pressure” off. Plus, I learn a lot by watching the video of myself singing... painful as it may be to watch.4. Immerse yourself in art outside of the music hall.
Visit art museums, take an art class, write, take a dance class, read period literature. Inspiration comes from all around you.5. Decide what you are good at doing and do more of that.
Don’t waste your time trying to be the best at everything6. You have your whole life ahead of you. Don’t rush.
Don’t feel like you have to have it all worked out right now. You have a whole life to learn and grow and change. All this information we have given you can be daunting... but we’re only planting the seed. Now it’s your choice to continue to water and feed it and let it grow or to forget about it and let it wither away. 7. Don’t be afraid of opportunities. If you wait until you’re “ready” you’ll never do it.
Sometimes the opportunity that falls into you lap isn’t what you had hoped for or dreamed of... and that’s ok. Take it anyway.8. Never stop learning, researching, and keeping the curiosity alive.
Keep that drive and that thirst to constantly better yourself, no matter where your life takes you. 9. Your success as a person is not dependent on your success as a singer.
It took me way too long to figure this one out... and yoga helped me get there. Your mood, your mental health, and your life do not revolve around how well you sang in a lesson or at an audition. That is just one facet of your being. Embrace your other interests and talents and allow yourself to be a well-rounded individual.10. Even if you don’t pay your bills from performing, you are still a singer.
It doesn’t make you any less of an artist if you teach or work a day job or get your musical fix by singing in a choir. If you love to sing and you cannot picture your life without music in it, you are a singer.
