Do yourself every favor · Dan Callaway Studio

Do yourself every favor

I'm singing a concert tomorrow with a local wind and brass ensemble, and the piece I'm singing has ever-changing time signatures. At rehearsal this week I thought oh I can read music I should be fine on this counting. I made a few mistakes.

So I literally went through my music and wrote the number of beats on every measure, and at the dress rehearsal today I literally counted using my fingers against my folder.

I sang it well, and all the rhythms were precise.

My brain thought "if you were a real musician you wouldn't need to write these counts out and you would be able to just to feel the internal pulse without counting on your fingers like a second grader." -- messages I picked up from various teachers and professors.

Truth is I needed the numbers in my score and I needed my fingers to count so that I could know where I actually was.

It worked, and it made me feel confident, and I did good work.

Are there things that you tell yourself you shouldn't need? What if you gave them to yourself? Do yourself every favor.

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