Question 5

Hello Mrs. Lang,
why do you ask why I want to become a singer and where I see myself in 10 years? I really just want to learn to sing and then the right thing will happen.
M.B.

Dear Mrs. B.,

for me, the question of why and where I want to go is imperative when it comes to training to become a singer. This profession is a very difficult one and the way to the stage can be hard and connected with many renunciations.
In addition to a resilient, beautiful-sounding, fascinating voice, one needs a good physique, iron health, a natural, quasi-inherent emotional ability to express and portray oneself, joy in flexibility, great discipline and accepts that one must learn and work on oneself throughout a singer's life. 

Appearance also plays a major role in the stage profession to be visually evaluated. Voice and appearance should complement each other, fit together and allow a coherent interpretation and presentation of words, music and the respective role.

Engagements are not guaranteed and depend on many different factors. Thus, knowing that one would have another career option can be very helpful. It can be over with the singing profession from one day to the next: by health impairments, by vocal wear and tear, by reaching the retirement age of the corresponding "Fach" or that one is simply no longer "flavor of the month". So it's always good to have a plan B ready to go.

In short: you should have to sing, have an inner fire that drives you to keep going and see setbacks as fuel to keep studying. The soul and the heart must have to go on stage and thus make possible an own statement, which produces something unmistakable - with joy, courage and love.

A degree in music is no guarantee that one will work as a singer until retirement. You should be aware of this, inform yourself well and define your life goals for yourself very precisely. In this way, you can protect yourself from possible disappointments.

Of course, sometimes you just have to let things go and wait and see what happens. However, it can also be very helpful to know where you want to go, where you want your life-professional journey to go, and how you want to achieve your goals.

Therefore, as a teacher, it is important for me to know what the student wants to achieve in order to be able to define the common goal of the study (of student and teacher).

Yours sincerely
Petra Lang