Lynn Eustis has finally
done it. She has created a singer’s
self-help manual that is long on useful
ideas and practical advice and devoid
of the psychobabble and new-agey feel-good
double-speak that is the usual content
of such tomes. Typically, books like
this one have about three chapters of
decent material and another five chapters
of redundant word-spinning to fill pages.
Not so this, which is the most concise
and effectively personal essays on the
art of singing and its mountains of
baggage that I have ever had the pleasure
to read.
Dr. Eustis is an Assistant
Professor of voice at the University
of North Texas in Denton. She holds
degrees from Bucknell University, the
Curtis Institute of Music and Florida
State University. Before she assumed
her faculty positions, she pursued a
full time career as an opera singer
in New York, and has appeared in operatic
productions, recitals and with orchestras
throughout the United States and abroad.
She is also recognized as a scholar,
presenting lecture demonstrations on
the music of the Holocaust to receptive
audiences around the country, and she
is a sought after adjudicator. Many
of her students have gone on to pursue
professional careers, and others have
become successful teachers in their
own right.
The book is divided
into two major sections: The Inner World
and The Outer World. In a totally unabashed
yet not self-indulgent manner, Dr. Eustis
invites the reader into her own personal
space, candidly relating her own trials
and tribulations as a student of singing,
as a professional singer and as a teacher.
She is frank about her own shortcomings
and she proves that she has had the
wherewithal to find solutions to the
problems that held her back and hampered
her progress.
One might easily quip
that a book about the egos of singers
would be a very long opus indeed. All
jokes aside, Dr. Eustis gets right to
the nuts and bolts of what it takes
to have a career as a singer, and along
the way provides sound advice on just
how to approach the art, how to find
the right teacher, how to overcome stage
fright and all importantly, how to keep
the relationship of "the voice!"
and "the human being" in healthy
balance.
Nearly every gnarly
topic that a singer might encounter
is covered here. She speaks frankly
about dealing with difficult colleagues,
testy and overbearing stage directors,
tyrannical conductors and she has a
thing or two to say about coping with
the critics, with whom she has had her
fair share praise and pan.
In the "outer
world" section of the book, she
helps singers cope with the way that
others perceive them. Covering even
the most private of issues, she deals
frankly and adroitly with personal relationships,
the relationship between singers and
their families, spouses and children,
and she gives some very helpful words
on the ever stressful world of competition,
both for students and professionals.
Perhaps one of the
most useful tools of this book is the
systematic method in which Dr. Eustis
leads the reader through the entire
course of a career as a singer. She
begins at the very beginning, that time
in which a youngster discovers that
he or she has a voice that will attract
attention. She moves next into the high
school years and the often-painful transition
from adored local star to small fish
in a big pond collegiate life. She talks
bluntly of the rigors and pitfalls of
professional life, not sparing aspiring
singers from the fact that a full time
and lucrative career as a professional
singer happens to very few indeed.
And yet, with all the
caveats she presents, Dr. Eustis gives
a supportive and positive reinforcement
to those who would venture into the
operatic jungle. She provides a large
list of alternative careers and some
helpful hints as to how and where to
pursue them without having to leave
music behind altogether. Yet, she also
deals unhesitatingly with the fact that
a career in music is not for everyone
and that if a person were to never sing
again after today, he or she would be
no less a human being.
This is not just a
book of lectures from a master teacher.
It is a practical guide to making it
in a tough world, and to that end, most
chapters close with a well-constructed
and germane set of self-exploratory
questions for the future opera star
to consider. Call them soul search discussion
topics if you will, they even made this
old professional singer rethink some
of his approaches to his art.
Dr. Eustis’ language
is clear and personal, and as one reads
the text one feels as if he has entered
into a conversation with a trusted friend
over a good meal. I did find one small
consistent grammatical quibble in that
Dr. Eustis consistently uses the now-accepted
but not really correct word "empathetic"
instead of the more proper "empathic,"
but I must admit that I am a bit over
zealous when it comes to those sorts
of usage formalities.
This is a book that
should sit well used on the shelves
of all singers, aspiring singers and
teachers. It won’t take you long to
read it, and it is well worth an annual
re-read. Recommended highly.
Kevin Sutton
