54: Two More Sasha Spiels
with Sasha Cooke
Gut Instinct
Oh! Another Sasha Spiel: gut instinct. So I like to talk about the gut, which is the relationship with oneself. People will give you advice: You shouldn't wear that. You shouldn't sing that. Why are you doing that? I mean, unsolicited, all the time. What do you think about it, you know? It's just like a relationship.
One of my pet peeves is when singers say, Oh, that teacher destroyed my voice! Like, Where were you in that whole scenario? Did you notice something was going awry and did you take care of it? And say, I'm so sorry, thank you for your time this is no longer working. It's just like a romantic relationship: so sorry, this is not working.
So what do you want to do and what do you not want to do, you know? I mean, I think what's interesting is we face the audience. I believe we're the only instrument that does that. Our eyes are looking into the eyes of the audience. So we have to be true. The, the tableau, the picture has to be very clear. So if we're not happy in a certain scenario that will read. So if you're in a-- in a show or a piece or in a relationship or in a place of an opera where you don't want to be, it will show, it'll read in your music. So listening to your gut instinct, what does it want? And that might even be to stop being a musician.
Most people have many chapters in their lives, and musicians. We invest so much time and money and self into the musical journey. But if ever comes a time where your gut is saying, This isn't working for me, listen to that. It's always right. So like, if I get a job offer and it's a really busy period and I can feel my gut saying, No, no. And I'm like, No, no, no. I got to do it! I got to do that piece in that place! And my gut’s like, No. So I try to listen, I try to get quiet and it's so hard to say no, it's so hard to tell people I'm sorry, but I can't. But we have to so that we're full to then share our art, because if we're empty, got nothing.
Openness
So the last Spiel is openness, because I don't think we can we can know what's on our path. And I think some musicians assume they have it all figured out. I've heard singers, for instance, say, Oh, I'm going to be a Pamina, and then I will transition into a Lucia, and it’s like, How do you know? In my case, did I ever know contemporary music would be a big part of my path? Absolutely not. Never would have guessed that.
When I was at Rice and at Juilliard, various composers would say, Will, you sing my piece? And I was like, Sure. And that was my beginning with new music. Little did I know I was planting seeds that would later flower into a career. I was at the Met in the Young Artists program, I walk into a coaching and my mentor says, John Adams just requested you to sing lead in his opera. I was like, What? John Adams knows my name? What? Sure enough, those performances I did in school, at Juilliard, wherever, somehow trickled to John Adams to hear about me. And he said, You're like Lorraine Hunt. That's what I've heard, you're like, Lorraine. Like, whoa, what an honor.
So openness was me being open to something I didn't anticipate. I was in improv, the improv comedy troupe. I was in gospel choir. I did a lot of random things, and when I look back, I realize that all of those things, even attending chamber music concerts. When I was in school, I would go to the instrumental performances and I remember some of my singer friends saying, Why are you going to that? I'm thinking, I love it, it's great. Is there a relationship between that and me singing now with instruments all the time, specifically in concert and chamber music? I think so.
So I like to tell musicians, be open to things you can't anticipate now. Surprise yourself. Don't close the door so quickly because you never know. And that, that connects to being open to stopping singing too. Because if your gut is telling you that, it will be okay, it will be okay. It's hard, scary, but it will be okay. So those are the four: gratitude, preparation, openness and gut instinct. There probably are more, but those are the four I have right now.