THE ACCOMPLISHED BEGINNER

Being accomplished and being a beginner can coexist

You can be brilliant at what you do and completely new to singing.

One does not diminish the other.

I was once invited to give a singing workshop for a French company, and something rather wonderful happened. Within the corporate hierarchy were people occupying very different positions — including the CEO and a woman employed as a cleaner.

When we began to sing, those professional distinctions suddenly became irrelevant.

The CEO discovered that singing was certainly not his strongest suit. The cleaner, however, had a beautiful natural voice and could sing considerably better than he could.

For perhaps the first time within that particular environment, she was the person with the exceptional ability.

She was heard.

She was admired.

And she received recognition from colleagues who had previously known her principally through the job she performed for them.

I have never forgotten it.

Music has an extraordinary capacity to remove the labels we accumulate around ourselves. CEO, cleaner, lecturer, director, lawyer, teacher — none of these tells us who will possess the most beautiful voice, the finest musical ear or the greatest capacity for expression.

In the singing room, everyone begins with the instrument they have been given.

And sometimes the person who is accustomed to being the expert becomes the beginner, while somebody who has rarely been recognised discovers that this is where they shine.

That is one of the things I love about teaching singing.

There is always something new to discover about another person — and sometimes about ourselves.