Anything I Can Do You Can Do Better

I HAVE MOVED ... TO A NEW BLOG

2011-07-14T12:32:00.000-07:00

...OR, to be precise, I have consolidated my two blogs -- Anything I Can Do You Can Do Better and Tessa Souter into one blog and from now on will do ALL my posts there. I can't work out how to contact my followers on these blogs so if you see this I would LOVE you to follow my new blog instead of this one.

Click HERE to get to it.

Thanks!

The Pace Report + The Wall Street Journal

2011-03-07T20:31:00.000-08:00

I was so nervous of being interviewed at the Jazz Standard by Brian Pace of the Pace Report. Click here to see the full interview and clips of our gig at the Jazz Standard two weeks ago. I love the title of it, by the way. One of my Mum's names for me is "Butterfly Mind".

Actually it was a hairy week because on the day of the gig, an article about me appeared in the Wall Street Journal by Martin Johnson. He writes about jazz and all things gastronomique -- click here for his fabulous cheese blog. And here to read the article on line, if your eyesight can't cope with the copy below.

I have no idea what was so scary about it. Maybe being at the other end of it, and out of control. Or fear of saying something completely stupid by accident. I am quite sure, for example, that Ricky Gervais's turn at the Golden Globes was a kind of Tourette-ian outburt. But in some ways that's the beauty of it. Not being able to do anything is sort of restful if you just let go. So ... I decided to just relax and be grateful instead.

Push! Push! Push!

2011-02-20T12:14:00.000-08:00

Or, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, "Never give in! Never give in! Never, never never!" A few months ago, for no earthly reason that I can think of, I was inspired to look at the website of my friend, artist Susannah Bettag. I say "for no earthly reason" because we aren't in constant touch. She lives in San Francisco. I live in New York. And we are both busy. So we see only each other about once a year.

What I saw when I went to the website were the most amazing paintings I've seen in years, by anyone. They seemed to me to represent some kind of culmination of all her previous work. Here are some of them, so you can judge for yourself. Click here to see many more. And this isn't a "hobby". She's actually represented by a highly respected gallery.

So I was absolutely shocked when, in San Francisco a couple of weeks ago, she announced, over a cup of tea (the British cure-all equivalent of chicken soup), that she was "taking a break". Possibly even a one-year break. She's keeping her studio, and she's going to keep going in from time to time but she is taking the focus off painting for a while so she can hang out with her children and work on doing up a house. It turns out that she, far from seeing these recent paintings as a culmination, sees them as a new direction that she's not sure she wants to take. Hmmm.

Now, if you want my pennyworth, I'd say, by all means see them as the beginning of something new, but for crying out loud don't stop now! Meanwhile, it's a very apropos illustration of the blog that's been building up inside me over the past few months about the importance of the fallow field versus (not that anyone around here is dreaming of doing this -- of course!) giving up. One of the few Geography lessons I remember, in case you've forgotten it, a farmer rotates his crops so that one field (a different one each year) gets the opportunity to lie fallow. If it doesn't lie fallow it becomes infertile and can't produce good crops (which, come to think of it, might explain what's happened to the taste of food, of late).

It is so easy as an artist not to take a break, and I have found that during those periods where I FORCE myself to have Sundays off, I am actually more creative the rest of the week. So I am all for lying fallow. Some of our greatest talents took LONG breaks -- Sonny Rollins took off years (although he practiced every day). Miles Davis also took off years (and didn't practice, and had to catch up when he came back to it). However .... the trick is to know when you need to lie fallow -- and whether a year is possibly a bit much (unless you are a field of course) -- and when you need to keep going.

The other day, in Half Moon Bay to perform at the wonderful Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society, I took a walk in the morning along the cliffs. There were two little surfers in the distance and I thought I'd watch them and maybe take a photo. It was fascinating to watch their progress out to sea. As the first surfer went out he kept getting pushed back by the waves. But each time he was pushed back, he was a little further out to sea than the time before. By the way, for no reason at all that I could see, the progression of the second surfer was much faster. Just sayin'.

However, if the waves had been harder to get past (which I am sure they are when you're talking about Hawaii or somewhere), it would have taken a lot longer to get out to where the ride-able waves are. In that case, maybe a break to rest and gather your strength would make sense, right? Or maybe you just keep doing it and eventually build the muscles required to get strong enough to finally (one miraculous day!) get far enough out to catch a big one.

This must have taken a while to get out to, right?

But here's another analogy (which brings me to the title of today's blog): When I gave birth to my son I remember thinking (after eleven hours in labor), my goodness, this baby is never going to come OUT! But I had three nurses on either side of me shouting "Push! Push! Push!" What must it be like to give birth alone without that encouragement? I can't imagine! And, at this point, half the nurse's job is to remind you that it's not just agony for no reasons, there's actually a baby in there! And it needs to be born!

It reminds me of that period in your creative development when you are getting ready to move to the next level. Where you wonder what the hell are you doing. Where the hell you are going? What the PH you were THINKING when you started this whole thing? Where you have to have utter blind faith that there's something in there TO come out. This is the time, second only to starting out, when you are most likely to give up.

And actually I think there is a point when you SHOULD give up and just do what you have to do at the final stages of labor, stop pushing and start panting. Oh my goodness! The panting. Yikes! I can't remember why, but I remember them telling me to do it. And then at the very end, one final PUSH, followed by the blissful bumpity bump of legs and arms. And ... Boom! Actual baby! If only we could love our creative productions as unconditionally and instantly. But, then again, perhaps creating a work of art is more like surrogacy than having your own baby. It's not for YOU. It's for other people.

So, I'm just saying ... By all means lie fallow for a bit. Pant. Keep swimming to build those muscles, even if it's only in the local swimming pool. But don't stop! And, most of all, give yourself a break in that other sense.

Because wherever you are, be it near or far from your dreamed-of destination, the endeavor is so difficult, so fraught with doubts, so peppered with failures along the way, at times it feels it would be easier to give up. To keep going requires constant effort, confidence, self belief, preparation, a road map, assistance and encouragement from people around you. A plan. ... As Julia Cameron points out in The Artist's Way, "All too often it is audacity and not talent that moves an artist to center stage." And just as often, maybe more often, it is lack of audacity, not lack of talent, which makes others give up. [From page 55 of my book]

To quote Andre Gide, "Art begins with resistance -- at the point where resistance is overcome. No human masterpiece has ever been created without great labor." Or as Po Bronson says in his 'What Should I Do With My Life' (and yes, I am the tea-making Tessa referred to in the chapter on community): "The hardest thing was not learning to write. The hardest thing was to never give up."

United We Stand: Community or Competition

2010-10-09T13:10:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about this subject a lot lately. Inspired partly by my thinking about a lunch I had three years ago with my one of my exes exes (it's complicated!). That day we discovered we had a lot more in common than we'd realized when we were wary peripheral "friends" -- introduced (and kept apart) by our mutual ex. But as we sat down at the table, and before our bums had even hit the seats, she leaned forward and said: "I've been dying to have this lunch with you for twenty years!"

Lunch? Schmunch! We laughed. We cried. We confided. Ohmygoodnessweconfided! Did we ever! We understood. We finished that lunch REAL friends. In Platonic love. But, the other thing, the MAIN thing, is that we left that table stronger.

In my meandering mind (stick with me, because this is related), I've been thinking a lot lately about community versus competition in my profession and ... dare I say it? ... singers seem to be so much more competitive of each other than instrumentalists. My boyfriend, Billy, who is himself an amazing drummer (and is always saying: "It's not a competition, Sweets!") absolutely LOVES other drummers. If you go to a gig with a great drummer on the bandstand (I don't mean just famous, but peers), trust me, there will be at least ten or more other drummers in the crowd with blissed out expressions on their faces. And on the break they rush the bandstand to compare sticks, and rivets on the cymbals (what is it with rivets?), and other drum geekery. Same with guitarists. The point being that they celebrate and support each other's talent. I rarely hear them talk about someone's failings. Blimey!

But singers ... Well, is it because we are mostly women and women are encouraged by society to compete with each other? For whatever reason, singers DO. I'm not pointing fingers because I am not immune to these feelings. And of COURSE I am not talking about all singers. And I certainly don't mean YOU, dear reader. But the question bears thinking about because, true or not (and come on, you know which it is), singers have that reputation in the jazz community, at least among instrumentalists.

So it was particularly wonderful that at my 55 Bar gig last night there was a bunch of singers, GREAT singers, in the crowd. I'd known a couple of them were coming and had actually said a little prayer on the train on my way down there that I would be able to focus on being "real" rather than get all tangled up in having to be "good", because I was playing with an out-of-town guitar player I had never even met and, well, you never know, do you! And I don't care what anybody says, praying WORKS. Because the out-of-town guitarist, who I shall call John Stowell (because it was indeed he, and I am playing with him at the Earshot Jazz Festival in Seattle at the end of the month), got stuck in traffic on his way back from a gig in CT and was 40 minutes (count them!) late.

What to do, with a room full of restless people there to hear music (not the stand up I would have had to resort to)? Well, use the resources around me -- namely the wonderful and amazing Katie Bull, Kendra Shank (that's our picture in the break at the top) and my "New York Mum" Connie MacNamee, who all functioned as my vocal rhythm section. I wish I'd managed to get all the singers in the crowd to join us. I certainly would have if John hadn't made it. And when John turned up he said he didn't even feel like he was needed which, of course he was. But so was his lateness, because it allowed my "sisters in song," who were there for me (in every way), to demonstrate so beautifully what I also learned from that lunch three years ago ...United we stand!

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How do you keep the music playing?

2010-08-14T11:45:00.000-07:00

So .... I guess I am stuck on the Long and Winding Road theme because of where I'm at in my own career. It's all very Saturnian - hard work, endurance, building, learning, tearing down the old, working on the new and MOST OF ALL, staying enthused. But I'm keeping hanging on - hoping I'm not clinging to a cloud! NB: All purple text is clickable to get to the links

[book excerpt]

HANG ON TO YOUR LOVE

"People talk about following your bliss," says Simon Robinson. "But sometimes when you do that and you have to 'play the game' - pandering to shop buyers who don't want to buy anything that hasn't already been in a magazine - you end up hating the thing you once loved. It becomes such brutal, grinding work that you don't want to think about it anymore." I know what he means. I got to a stage in my music where I was so focused on turning it into something that would make me a decent living that I forgot why I was doing it in the first place -- for love; for its own sake; because I just loved doing it in the moment.

"There should always be a sense of moving ahead and growing all the time," says Michael Becker, former musician and producer turned photographer. "But you absolutely positively can't be focused on the end result." Interestingly, since Michael started focusing on photography and, consequently relaxed about his music, his music career has been quietly taking off again - most notably with the song 'In the Deep', which he co-wrote and produced (and played all the instruments on) with actress-singer Bird York, which plays out the Oscar-winning movie Crash.

But photography is now his first love and he has faith in it turning out well - to the extent that he was willing to mortgage his house at the beginning. "I'm not sure I knew where I was going but I knew I was going somewhere," he says. And having researched his chosen career thoroughly , he was prepared for it to take a long time. "It was something I read over and over again on the websites I looked at. It takes time."

[end of book excerpt]

So here are my tips to keeping it fresh along the way:

1. Be flexible. You really don't know what you might be doing in ten years. Be willing to go in a totally new direction. Michael Becker, for example, is flourishing as BOTH a musician AND a photographer nowadays.

Footnote: Simon Robinson, who, at the time I interviewed him for the book, had a successful business manufacturing papier mache mirrors made out of love poems, is now writing a novel. I have read some of it and it is absolutely brilliant. Watch this space for further developments.

2. Keep going. Duh! Just keep putting one foot in front of the other. You will get SOMEWHERE. Even if it's somewhere you didn't expect to get.

3. Having said that, it is probably good to have in mind a destination. Personally I love walking, but I have to be going somewhere, preferably to do something like shop or visit a friend or whatever. The thought of aimless walking with no destination doesn't inspire me to even put my shoes on!

4. Which isn't to say that you can't make detours. Detours are good. Follow your bliss, as they say.

5. Keep learning. I am now studying theory and piano and I can't wait for my next lesson!

6. Do the "artist date" that Julia Cameron talks about in her fab book, The Artist's Way. I went to a Giacometti retrospective at MOMA a few years ago and I couldn't wait to get back home and start composing. Perhaps if I'd been a sculptor I might have come home and thrown away my tools! Then again, Mikhail Barysnikov said, "No dancer can watch Fred Astaire and not know that we all should have been in another business." But it didn't stop him, did it! Be inspired by it all!

7. Banish all thoughts of "overnight success". In fact, if you look deeper into all the overnight successes you will find that they were preceded by years of hard work. In fact, banish all thoughts of "success" and focus on doing whatever you're doing because you love it. As Gene Hackman, one of my heroes, once said: "I was trained to be an actor, not a star!"

8. Don't fret about your self doubts. If you didn't have self doubt, where would be the inspiration to keep improving? Or so my very wise friend, singer Mansur Scott always says to me.

9. Treat failures and setbacks as lessons and soldier on. As novelist Veronica Henry says: "Some days I am all over the place, convinced that I have the hardest job in the world .... and how on earth can I be expected to dredge up inspiration from nowhere. After a few days of wallowing I have to give myself a stern talking to and tell myself to get on with it in a professional and objective manner!"

10. Be willing to throw out everything you have done up to now and start afresh. As Veronica says: "Sometimes you have to do the worst thing and throw everything out. That is seriously hard but entirely necessary. And after the initial pain, a huge relief, as you no longer have to do battle with something that's not working. That's when you can move on. In the meantime ... the blackness. And the euphoria. Thank God for the euphoria."

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California Dreaming ....

2010-02-11T20:32:00.000-08:00

"Magic is believing in yourself. If you can do that, you can do anything." Goethe

I am so excited to be coming out to California again. Here is me in my kitchen in San Francisco reading one of the mags I used to write for. We could see Golden Gate Bridge from our window -- behind me!

I leave tomorrow and have THREE gigs, one of which (in Sebastopol) was sold out two weeks in advance! To let you know, they are at Ruth Price's wonderful Jazz Bakery, Ernie Shelton's House Concert in beautiful Sebastopol, and the swanky new Yoshi's in San Francisco.

San Francisco still feels kind of like "home" to me, even though I left there over ten years ago. Maybe that's partly because it is where I first started on this madness of being a jazz singer, after I sat in at the Mint Karaoke Bar on Market Street down the road from the first Writer's Grotto -- when I was a writer and one of the "original six" Grotto members, along with Po, Ethan Watters, Ethan Canin, David Munro and Josh Kornbluth. Here is an invitation with all our pictures on it that I made for one of our fab parties. Click on the pic to see full image.

So I've been thinking lately about Chapter Four of my book: The Long and Winding Road: Keeping The Faith. As I say there, "It's easy to keep going when things feel good. The challenge is to keep going when it stops feeling good. This chapter is about how to get unstuck, as well as how to keep going when you lose faith, when you feel as if you reached rock bottom a long time ago but keep finding - no! - there's still a ravine or two to go."

And for this I throw in a perfectly good career as a features journalist to become a jazz singer? So when I say "thinking"... I mean specifically ...

"OhMyGodWhatWasIThinking?"

Which makes me realize that doing this (and probably any creative endeavor) requires not only commitment but constant RE-commitment. To quote Po Bronson in his book What Should I Do With My Life: "The hardest thing was not learning to write; the hardest thing was to never give up."

And the answer to the above question is I wasn't thinking. It just kind of happened after I sat in at the Mint Karaoke Bar in SF one night and one thing led to another and .... well, here I am, coming back to San Francisco to SING. Which is all well and good. But when I DO think about it my path gets all cluttered up with doubts and questions (mainly the ohmygodwhatwasithinking question).

So I was talking to my brother, Simon, on the phone yesterday and telling him I had reached the Frida Kahlo question point (viz: I am still doing it but I don't know why -- I paraphrase, of course). And he said: "Well because you enjoy it and one day you are going to be very successful at it." I said, "Do you really believe that, though?" And he said: "Of course! But right now the main thing is that you enjoy it!" Which is very wise, isn't it. I mean, I can see why you might give up trying to "get somewhere" or win a Grammy, but why would you give up something you enjoy?

And that is why I decided to pursue singing instead of writing. Because writing is something you simply can't do except on your own. As a full-time endeavor it is too lonely for me. Of course, writing is connecting with people, but in a non-direct way. But ...singing is all about connecting right in the moment. It's just giving out something absolutely essentially YOU with no filter. And it's not "about" anything. It IS the thing itself and I love it. So the answer to that question is ...

Ohmygodiwasn'thinkingbutthat'sokaybecauseit'sfun!

Something to think about along the journey.

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Page holder....+ Joe's Pub, New York WITH VIDEO ADDED

2010-01-08T09:26:00.000-08:00

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I am I am I promise going to blog on Luck in the next few days! Or maybe on New Year resolutions. Or maybe someone will say something that needs addressing. Meanwhile, it was so fantastic to have a totally sold out gig at Joe's Pub last weekend, when I had been utterly convinced that there would be no one there! Because It was freezing cold. It was the Saturday after New Year's. And I am the worrying type! But -- hooray! -- it was so sold out people had to sit on the floor, stand at the bar and were actually turned away at the door (not hooray for that bit!). And we were really lucky to have a lovely crowd -- not just big, but nice! Here are some pix taken by Philine VanLidth DeJeude on the night.

AND HERE (BELATEDLY -- NOW MARCH) IS A VIDEO OF VERA CRUZ BUT IT WON'T SHOW THE FULL WIDTH SO PLEASE DOUBLE CLICK ON IT TO VIEW IT ON YOUTUBE

We were helped by a fantastic review for Obsession which appeared in the January issue of AllAboutJazz-New York (read it HERE), and by being picked by TIME OUT NEW YORK as one of only two must-sees of the New Year weekend. Tonight (Friday) we will be at the 55 Bar, in a smaller configuration (gig info is on my website, but just quickly, 55 Bar is at 55 Christopher Street, right by Christopher Street subway in the village and our sets are at 6.15 and 8) and then I am getting ready to travel -- to California (Southern AND "home" to Northern California, my first destination when I got to America) and Russia. Here is the fantastic poster they made!

See you back here (or somewhere!) soon!

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The Loneliness of the Self-flagellating Artist

2009-12-10T05:51:00.000-08:00

"Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow that talent to the dark place where it leads." Erica Jong

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So today I want to talk about how HARD is this thing we do -- this creative pursuit. This thing, incidentally, that we both don't have to do and have to do at the same time. As Frida Kahlo once said: "I am working, but even that, I don't know how or why." Here is a picture of Frida who, by the way, was (sorry to be a typical mum, but ...) much prettier than she saw herself.

[book excerpt]

"There's a reason so many great artists commit suicide. It isn't only that they are 'sensitive souls' -- although that doesn't help. ... No matter how brilliant you are, you are going to lose confidence, you are going to face rejection. As many people will want to pull you down as lift you up. It takes supreme faith -- in your ability, in the universe, in God, in whatever it takes -- to keep you going."

Which brings me to the hardest thing of all ... the feeling that we are crap and why on earth are we bothering to visit upon ourselves, let alone others, our crapness,

I, at various times, run the gamut of emotions from "in the moment" (which, in my opinion and more on which later, is the thing to aspire to) to utter crap. After recording one of my now favorite CDs I left a message on Billy's voicemail, sobbing about not only how CRAP I was (note those capital letters), but how "ugly" too -- you know, just for good measure.

He, having just emailed me (I hadn't read my email yet) about how great I'd sounded and how excited he was to hear the finished thing, was absolutely bewildered. And my dear friend Sue, responded to my emergency call by tearing over, superheroine-black cloak-like coat flying behind her, pen and notebook in hand, to listen to "the horror" and, perhaps, whiz around the world backwards a few times to reverse time so I could do it again properly.

"Oh thank God you're here," I said, when she arrived, plonking her on the sofa with a cup of tea and the CD controller, while I busied myself in the bathroom, generally removing fistfuls of hair, scratching at my face and howling, kind of like Jane Eyre's Mrs Rochester in the attic -- but without the laughing or the matches.

So ... drawing a discreet veil over the utter self absorbed bollocksness (er ... speaking of self-flagellatory) of my initial reaction (I mean, like there aren't people in the world with real problems, for crying out loud), I'd like to address the "problem" of being so down on yourself that you don't even take up opportunities that are offered to you, let alone pursue any -- either because you are so sure of your own crapness, or because you self-sabotage.

I spent my entire childhood feeling like a gangly orangutang next to my platinum blond brother with the adorable smile (don't get me started on my wonky teeth!) ... Here is a gratuitous picture of me in my gangly orangutan days just to give you some perspective

Given that I feel like I was born feeling inadequate, it sometimes strikes me as just plain weird that I have chosen to pursue not one but two careers that depend on outside approval for their success. Actually, maybe that makes profound psychological sense, after all. But, whatever, being dependent on outside approval for success can make for a bit of a roller coaster existence, with fabulous periods of elation (a standing ovation from 1500 people in Moscow ... that was fan-TAS-tic! -- you can read about that trip HERE) followed by just as long, or longer, periods of despair, for no reason whatsoever.

I have come to the conclusion that the necessary dredging up of the innermost depths of your being that goes with the territory of being creative hurts. Especially when it brings forth emotions that you didn't even know were buried deep down in there. For me, increasingly, being a singer is less and less about getting approval (which is why great reviews -- even though I love them, of course! -- don't hit the spot like they used to) and more and more about making a connection (which is why standing Os do).

It's not about delivering a perfect performance. Mark Murphy said to me once that audiences aren't there with their arms and legs crossed (I paraphrase, but this is the gist) thinking, "Show me!" They are there to receive our Love and have a good time. And they aren't there to hear how long we can hold a note, or how many million notes we can fit in to a phrase -- unless that is an expression of who we are. Because our job, whether writing, singing, painting, playing, is to tell our story. Our story. To connect/express/be understood/understand/teach/learn.

The idea is to be "in the moment" to the extent that it ceases to be about ego and you absolutely (as little Billy Elliot puts it in the movie when they ask him why he loves to dance) "disappear." I saw that movie before I became a performer and that remark slipped right by me. When I revisited it recently, hearing it again felt like pocketing all the snooker balls in one go with one perfect hit. Because that is exactly what happens when you are "on". You no longer exist as a separate entity. You are just part of one big "it" -- whatever "it" is.

We are a work in progress. Not perfect, finished short stories/poems/songs/paintings. It's more ongoing and "human" than that. Some gigs are amazing. Some are ... well, some are not. Sometimes a sound system can let you down. Or you are distracted. Or under-rehearsed or you are in self-hating Orangutang mode where no matter that you have adorable little legs with knee socks and cute, badly cut bangs (Mum!), you are going to use that icecream cone to hide those wonky teeth.

Which brings me to perfectionism. Perfectionism is what inspires us to keep growing as artists, But letting perfectionism take over is always counter productive. You are there for the people in the gallery, not just for yourself. If you are giving them pleasure and they are loving it, that's perfect enough. I know an amazing, amazing musician who whenever he got compliments from the crowd used to bat them away if he didn't feel he had played well -- forgetting that most of us aren't looking for perfection, let alone that most people aren't even hearing the mistakes.

We have to learn to receive that Love, for want of a better word. The correct answer when someone says they love you isn't "No, you don't!" Or "You don't know what you're talking about. I'm crap!" Or "What are you? Deaf?" The correct answer is "Thank you!" Or even "I love you too!"

So here are my ten things to do when you are down on yourself:

1. Practice. Not to be perfect but to be better able to express yourself unbound by technique issues

2. When a self-flagellating thought enters your head just say "Stop!" and focus your attention on something in the moment. Last night I noticed that my sorrel or cabbage or whatever it was I was cooking was the most amazing green with dark red veins. Almost too beautiful to eat!

3. Don't beat yourself up about feeling bad/jealous/crap/hopeless/unworthy/fill in your own unhelpful emotion (and please don't put on your music when you're feeling like that!)

4. Rent a cathartic video. I love Billy Elliot. I cry. I laugh. I look like Alice Cooper by the time it's finished, but I feel absolutely spent

5. Remind yourself that sometimes you might be down on where you are now because you are about to move to the next level

6. Rest/have a hot bath/massage/morning in bed

7. Call a kind friend. Not one of those "other" kind. You know exactly who they are!

8. Take a break. Go for a walk (actually exercise is great if you can face it -- just don't use your inability to go to the gym as an excuse to hate yourself even more!)

9. Do something self-esteem raising (er ... how about going to the gym? If you want. Be self-kind)

10. Take yourself on what Julia Cameron, in her essential The Artist's Way, calls an "artist date" -- e.g., to a museum/show/gig. Not reading a book but going actually out somewhere and getting dressed up as if you are going on a date.

But most of all, get over yourself! Yes, darling, I'm talking to you! And me.

"Success is a small step taken just now" Jonatan Mårtensson

2009-12-06T09:28:00.000-08:00

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Okay, so … what is success?

Well, my best friend Neil just found out that his new book, The Media Relations Department of Hizbollah Wishes You A Happy Birthday, was named one of the TOP TEN books of the year on BarnesandNoble.com. Check it out here. He's in great company. I’d definitely call that a success. I also made a blogger's Best Jazz of 2009 list. Also in great company.

And right now, I am feeling like a wildly successful songwriter, since I discovered a California-based singer named Kara Stewart, who heard about me from someone I don't even know, has actually covered – beautifully – my original tune, ‘You Don’t Have to Believe’. This is Kara’s version, which I love.

If you want to hear mine, I have a live audio version on my myspace page. I also recorded it on my first CD, Listen Love. And my label made a video of me singing it at the Blue Note and will upload it to YouTube. Soon. Watch this space.

But does one singer singing my song mean I am a “successful” composer? Well, it does to me. But to Cole Porter? Prolly not. And it doesn’t really fall under the umbrella of the Oxford Dictionary definition of success as: 1. The accomplishment of an aim or purpose [since it never entered my head that someone else would want to sing it]; 2. The attainment of fame, wealth, or social status (er... about that...).

One of my favorite novelists, Alaa el-Aswany, has his own definition of success: “The reward I seek is from my writing only. I write because it makes me feel better. To express myself. To understand things. I had opportunities to make money. I was offered a job movie writing, but I refused. I like writing novels. I don’t want to do something I wouldn’t like. If you want to be a writer you must forget about fame and money.”

But it seems you aren’t really allowed to call yourself a painter/songwriter/singer if you are not successfully earning a living – especially a good living – doing it. Imagine meeting Van Gogh at a party today. ‘An artist? Really? Are you selling? Do you have a gallery? Oh, you’re planning to share a studio with an accountant-turned painter named Paul? Uh, your brother has bought some of your work, you say?’

When I first became a journalist in San Francisco, I’d rather sheepishly tell people who asked what I did, that I was a journalist – feeling like a big liar because I actually earned my living from cleaning houses, and my ‘journalism’ was basically a volunteer job (i.e., unpaid) eliciting rejection letters.

Of course, once I became a successful, (i.e., making enough money to live on it) journalist I realized, from the stand point of my "before and after’" perspective, that the fact I hadn’t earned money from it before hadn’t made me any less a writer. After all, how many poets make a living from writing poetry? And Alaa (who is also a dentist ... in fact, my dentist when I was in Cairo) was talking from the double perspective of having written his book , the amazing and beautiful The Yacobian Building in obscurity for years and then achieving mega success with it. It is even a movie.

And speaking of brothers, and success and doing things just for love with no idea of "getting anywhere" with it, my brother Simon and his wife, Fiona, like to make videos of themselves miming to songs, sort of ABBA style. The one they made of themselves miming to a Peter Sellers and Sophia Loren song has had over 164,000 hits on YouTube. (To give you some idea of how huge that is, Carmen McRae singing ‘I’m Glad There is You’ hasn’t even hit 20,000). To me that would be success beyond my wildest dreams. To them, since they only put it up for friends and family, “success” doesn’t even figure into it.

As for fame? Well, no one wants to be “too” famous. As Meg Ryan once said: “Sometimes I’m like, ‘Oh God! I just want to buy some tampons!’”

So, I’m thinking now that “success” is entirely relative and individual. Meanwhile, here are three fantastic quotes on the subject for all us strugglers and strivers to ponder on, that seem to me to capture the essence of true success.

1. “An artist cannot fail; it is a success just to be one.” Charles Horton Cooley,

2. “To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; to leave the world a little better; whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is the meaning of success.” Bessie Stanley

3. And, this is my favorite -- from an eleven year old I asked ( mid blog) to define success:

“Being happy in life?”

[Got to love that question mark!]

Success page holder

2009-12-02T10:45:00.000-08:00

I'm still planning to do a blog on success, when I get a minute. Meanwhile, I am putting up this absolutely inspiring video.

Seemingly effortless mastery! But so much went into the making of this routine. Luck (yes... blog coming on that later). Chemistry (between the two dancers and their amazing choreographer). Practice (duh!). Belief (Ellenore's parents moved to New York when she was a kid so she could follow her dream. Jakob's dad had to give up on Jakob being a sportsman and let him dance). Innate talent. Hard work. This routine (less than two minutes long!) would not have been possible without BOTH.

This is "success" whether they "win" the top title or not.

Bud Powell, Charlie Parker and ... Me!

2009-11-23T11:16:00.000-08:00

I have been feeling so guilty about not blogging here for nearly two weeks. I was in London, which was fantastic in some ways. One of my very best friends turned 50 and I had to give a speech at her dinner party for 50 (in their back garden. In a tent. In a Force 10 rainstorm). And sing a song written by her ten year old. A marvelous song. But my rendition ... well, ... (as the Birthday Girl herself pointed out) ... think, Phoebe on Friends singing 'Smelly Cat'. I also saw Sheila Jordan perform three times -- each time more fantastic than the last (t see my review of her Royal Opera House gig, click here)-- and got to chat with one of my all-time heroines, who I ran into in the audience -- Norma Winstone. And I saw Billy perform at Queen Elizabeth Hall with Carla Bley (he is a Lost Chord) and they got a standing ovation. Here is a review in the Daily Telegraph of the performance. And here is a picture of them all.They do look rather lost.

My own gig at Pizza on the Park was ... well, the first set was pretty good, I think. It's always hard to know. Certainly it had its moments. But we were under-rehearsed, so the second set was a bit shambolic. In my opinion. But ... see ... you can't always be on. However, it was sold out (always gratifying) and the audience was wonderfully appreciative. And overall, I had a wonderful time in London. It was incredible to see my own boyfriend perform in my own home town and get to stay in swanky hotel with him for two nights. And, as an added bonus, I was recognized quite randomly in three different places by three strangers as "Tessa Souter" (when this happens, as it has -- gasp! -- four times in the past few months, it always feels like this Tessa Souter is someone else who I am impersonating).

Here is a gratuitous video of my UK drummer, the amazing Winston Clifford, singing my song Usha's Wedding with me. This is a couple of years old (our version on November 12 was miles better) and the sound isn't ideal. But it gives an impression. Winston, by the way, can sing better than anyone! Note perfect John Coltrane solos! Need I say more? I love his vocal tone. I can't remember how I discovered he could sing but I am so glad I did. He sings this with me every time I play in London.

So the title of this blog ... Well, this weekend I had severe chest pains for the third time this week, so I called my best friend Neil and he insisted I call his best friend, doctor turned novelist Ethan Canin (who introduced us in San Francisco 15 years ago when I was a writer and I was the first woman member of the Writer's Grotto), and he insisted I go to ER at Bellevue Hospital where I was put to the front of the line at once. I didn't see the line until she left and guiltily repositioned myself at the back and got shouted at when she returned to find me there. "Did anyone tell you to move?" Er, no. "So why are you standing there instead of here?" Well, I saw there was a line and ... "You've got chest pains, right?" Yes. "So get back to the front!" And she shouted at the line like it was their fault for looking at me wrong. Sort of Nurse Ratchet, but in a good way.

Next I was whisked off on a stretcher-cum-bed thingie and X-rayed and EKG'd and hooked up to heart monitor (two baths later I am still scraping off the gunk they use to stick them on with) and blood pressure machine for what turned out to be the entire weekend in ER because they had no beds in the heart section (where I would have been put had they had any beds there).

Now, People, the Emergency Room of a public hospital is no place to get actual SLEEP. The rotating cast of characters was loud. The man in the bed to my left, thankfully hidden behind a curtain, was shouting incoherently for about half an hour, until the doctor arrived and then he very lucidly asked for: "Ah yes, two Percoset, please. 300 milligrams!" The doctor wanted to know why he wanted it. "It takes away everything, Nurse. EVERYTHING! All of Vietnam, all of the pain, the pus, ... all gone!" Actually I'm a doctor, she said and we don't just give people Percoset when they ask for it. "I need it, doc. For the pus!" Pus? "Yes, pus! That's another word for pain. I read it in the medical dictionary. You're a doctor and you don't even know that!" He was sent off with Ibuprofin. But see, he probably shouldn't have started out calling her "Nurse."

As a germ phobe, I can think of better places to spend the night. The bed next to mine had a rotating cast of coughing characters -- one of whom thought she might have H1N1 (she was sent home, so I think she was fine). Another woman, in with exactly the same symptoms as mine got dispatched home, after she'd eaten dinner. Ethan thought perhaps because she was in every week. I couldn't eat the food (ham and cheese sandwiches and green jello) so Neil turned up with an enormous bag of food, but every time I reached for it someone behind another curtain would make awful, long, heart-wrenching, choking noises. He was also loudly questioned about how often he pooed and whether he wanted to use a bed pan or have a diaper put on. He chose the latter. As I quietly returned my plastic bag of food to the shelf under my stretcher-cum-bed thingie.

Dozing was the only thing possible. I got woken up at various intervals by people shouting ("Im going to get my attorney on to those cops for bringing me here. He's a scary man. He's going to sue your asses!"). Or putting in their drug orders (one man recited a huge list -- none of which were available, but he must have had something serious because they gave him Morphine). Or to the sight of a man with his hands cuffed behind his back being marched past the end of my bed by a cop (there are almost as many cops as nurses in Bellevue ER), and even a group of itinerent types, awkwardly handcuffed together, shuffling through the ward. And lots of bright young people in red polo shirts, who turned out to be volunteers. I mean ALL NIGHT! Never again let me hear anyone complain about "young people today."

I can't even tell you how many times I was woken up to have my temperature taken or to be jacked up to a drip because my blood pressure was ... well, I say "dangerously low" (like 54 over 40) but is there any such thing as that when it comes to blood pressure. Even the daytime doctor agreed with me when I pointed that out. It's usually 90/60 -- the blood pressure of a five year old child. When I told him that I had once been told by a doctor that I had a "beautiful small heart", he said that would explain my low blood pressure and then ran off excitedly to see the X-ray for himself.

No, we don't know why I am getting chest pains. I suspect stress, which makes it a relevant blog on this mad life I (and maybe you) have chosen to live.

Here is MY diagnosis: I collect feelings in my chest. If I see an injury it always gives me a sharp pain there. If I relax, that is where I get a tickly feeling. When I am moved by music, my chest is where I feel it. It vibrates like a pain in my breastbone. So my theory (the doctors are still working on theirs) is that I am getting all stressed up in the night while I sleep and waking up with chest pains. Bud Powell and Charlie Parker (finally, the blog title explained!) also made visits to Bellevue, so I am in good jazz company.

Meanwhile, I can't wait for Billy to get back on Saturday, from the European tour. Poor thing was super worried when he got the message that I was in ER -- not helped by the fact that my phone died while I was there and he couldn't get in touch with me. Well, I say "poor thing" but he is ending his tour in Monaco, and will have the day off in Nice (poor darling!) over Thanksgiving. His soothing presence will have to suffice in lieu of my coming up with a fabulous money-making idea which will keep me in the manner to which I wish to become accustomed while I focus on my MUSIC alone, instead of all the trillions of things that go along with living day to day at the same time as feeding the constantly Hungry Baby of this music "career" of mine.

I promise to blog on Luck and Success (two separate blogs) in the next week or so. Watch this space.

Meanwhile, lucky me that I got so well taken care of this weekend, even though I didn't really have the time to spare, and (in my rush to leave) had left my pot of paint open with the brush on top of it so it was all dried out when I got home. And I got to witness some very gentle, sweet people who are in the world looking out for all of us. Nurses and doctors are really not just in it for the money. They are -- inspiringly -- patient and kind, even (perhaps even particularly) when refusing to hand out Percoset like Hallowe'en candy.

Oh, the Glamour!

2009-11-08T06:55:00.000-08:00

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This is an old post from my previous blog. It's not from my actual book, but in the NEXT printing, it will get a mention. It's kind of cheating, but some of you won't have seen it before, and I want to honor my ambition of posting ... er ... every day (what was I thinking!?). I have also spent HOURS updating my reviews page (please check it out here) -- which is good because it's because I had lots of new reviews to add (and a new picture by Billy), but bad because I did a total redesign and had to bully my fantastic and long-suffering and super busy brother into building it for me.

And I am going to London tomorrow to perform at Pizza on the Park (details of that at my website) on Thursday. And at the same time as packing for London and thinking of what I will sing (though not what to wear -- a Ralph Lauren backless number), I am getting ready for a gig this afternoon with a great band (see website again for more info) and have to make sure I don't miss the train.

I'm particularly excited about London this time because my best friend, Neil (fantastic writer) is flying out for it! He flew out to Beirut from Cairo to see me perform there, too, two weekends in a row! This is someone who knows how to be a BF. And I am going to see many of my other best friends over there.

Plus Billy is playing at QUEEN ELIZABETH HALL on the 17th (he is in Carla Bley's band -- an offical Lost Chord) and I will still be in town (amazingly!) and will spend two nights with him in his swanky hotel. We have both been so busy lately that we haven't seen each other for a week, even though we are 40 minutes away from each other! I couldn't even make his gigs this weekend -- though if it had been his own Freedom of Ideas band (which was sold out, packed and got a standing O at Smalls the other weekend and was AMAZING) -- I would have made the effort and been glad I did. But a girl can only do so much!

So ... check back soon. I will try to keep up while I am away.

MIND THE GAP ... A MEDITATION ON ER ... WINNING

Okay, so ... I won a competition to perform in a Gap store -- one of 800 stores throughout Canada and the US having a mass gig in celebration of the new Born to Fit range of jeans and 40 years of the Gap. This seemed terribly exciting. But about two days before the actual performance I suddenly got a strong instinct that perhaps it wasn't going to be very productive. I mean, ... a Gap store. In a deserted suburb of Philadelphia. A week before college starts back. On a Thursday evening. After hours. In August. During a 90 degree heatwave. But you can't just not turn up!

So I guess I wasn't terribly surprised when we finally located the store, in an outdoor mall, and noted a distinct lack of "throngs". In fact, there was no one in the shop when we burst through the doors, thinking thoughts along the lines of "shorely shome mishstake!" and "Wot? No poster?" At one point, one of the staff actually went outside to drum up business, calling out: "Two-for-one specials!" to no one in particular -- or do I mean no one at all, since I didn't actually see anyone in the desert-like parking lot.

It wasn't a total bust. There was a TV, ... well "crew" wouldn't be an accurate description of the lone camera man that was there. But he did film us, and, apparently, we did make the local news at 6PM, 11PM and 6AM the next day. And I sold four CDs, which is fab in terms of percentage (maybe ten people came through) but not so fab in terms of recouping expenses. Then again, Jason and I got vouchers for two pairs of jeans EACH! And the staff were ALL fabulous. Lovely. Helpful. Fun. And there were snacks! And Gap has some great two-for-one specials going on! And, may I say my bottom looks very fetching in my new "sexy boot cut" jeans.

Otherwise .... well, as a competition. I mean... let's just say, well, I'm not entirely sure what I won, exactly -- aside from my "sexy boot cut" jeans, which I do like very much. Somehow, it reminded me of the time Mum saw a marvelous offer for cheap monogrammed toothbrushes in a posh London department store. She ordered four and then watched, incredulously, as the young woman behind the counter took a black marker pen and scrawled our names in bad handwriting on four cheap looking toothbrushes and then handed them back to Mum, who obediently paid in a sort of dazed disbelief.

Thank goodness I was with Jason, who is an angel (or perhaps a saint), and joined in my laughing about it on the way home (though weakly, I admit) and who only said ONCE of my navigating skills (which had kind of caused us to take the alternative route -- Oh, okay, take several wrong turns, leading to the snarl up which caused us not to get home until 3am) that I had "the concentration span of a flea!"

SEE, JASON PERHAPS DOESN'T REALIZE, BUT FLEAS ARE ACTUALLY QUITE CLEVER AT DOING TRICKS!

Then again, he did ignore my express warning that I'm a directional dyslexic and that, unlike those blind people you hear about all the time that make crash landings in the Brazilian rain forest and miraculously burst out of the jungle six weeks later -- a little slimmer perhaps, but alive! -- I couldn't machette my way out of the proverbial paper bag, and if I were dropped in the middle of a Devon field of long grass would be found six weeks later lying on a small, circular patch of trodden-down leaves having starved to death (without losing a single POUND, by the way!), wondering how those blind people DID it.

Although, thinking about it, I could've eaten the grass (yet another example of wise after the fact).

HERE IS SOME GRASS TO LOOK AT, BTW. CLEARLY TRODDEN DOWN BY SOMEONE WHO KNEW WHERE THEY WERE HEADED

All of which proves that it is easy to be fooled by the word "winner" into doing some very silly things, like drive for seven hours (round trip, via the snarled-up route) to an unpaid gig in a small deserted suburb. But I do love my "sexy boot cut" jeans. And Billy (the official saint that my parents have been praying for all these years) will love his sweater (Jason and all the staff agreed he looked great in it when I held it up against the photograph of him in my wallet). And I am sure Natalya will love the top Jason got her. And Jason looked great in his new duds.

So all's well that ends well. Just like when Bill Evans played at a Chinese restaurant in Edmonton (say, ... what?) and, that very night, met the last love of his life. Read a fascinating five-part interview with with her (Laurie of the Bill Evans song) currently up at www.jazzwax.com. CHINESE FOOD (PICTURED RIGHT).

As an amazing, unrelated, coincidence, Jason and I played with Bill Evan's last drummer, Joe La Barbera, in the summer at the Catalina.

P.S. Does anyone want to enter a competition to win my latest CD for $5 MORE than it would cost them normally!

Wise Words from Will

2009-11-04T07:56:00.000-08:00

My son sent me this link today. Am putting it up in lieu of my blog today. Hope to be back later with today's blog. If not, this will hopefully keep you going.

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You've Got a Friend

2009-11-03T19:26:00.000-08:00

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So ... Muszewell718's question about artistic friends' lack of reciprocity... I sense in the question that M is looking for some kind of extra meaning in that lack of reciprocity, i.e., if one doesn't get recognition from one's peers, one must not be "good".

But actually, there could be any number of reasons that a person isn't going to give you reciprocity.

Let's start with the Mum-type answer: "They're just jealous, darling!" It could be that. Or maybe they just haven't heard you sing/read your writing/seen your paintings. Or maybe they have heard/read/seen and it's not their cup of tea. When I was 22 I was standing at a bar in Devon when two young women, about my age, arrived and stood a bit further along the bar, about five feet away from me. Girl Number 1. looking right at me, turned to the other and said: "Oh! Isn't that girl beautiful!" And Girl Number 2, also looking right at me, said: "God, no! I don't think so at ALL!" I didn't actually care, because I wasn't even my own cup of tea back then -- stupidly, I now realize (stern Mum-voice, if there are any young women reading this!).

And some people are just plain withholding. I have no idea why! Perfectly nice people. And then there are the pushmepullyou people, who bolster you up one minute but when they think you've got a bit too big for your boots, make it their business to karate chop you down, for no other reason than that some people like to tear the petals off flowers. I have observed all kinds in my life. But I have learned who to go to for encouragement. And I don't ask Girl Number 2: "How do I look?" when I am feeling insecure (or actually ever!)

Are you, M, deliberately self-sabotaging by asking for approval from the very people that you KNOW won't give it to you? Or using other people to beat yourself up with? Or looking for permission to give yourself something you want? Or, even, using them as an excuse to just NOT DO it? If you recognize yourself in any of the above, don't bother trying to analyze why -- another wonderous procrastination tool! -- Just STOP. I hope today's excerpt helps.

[book excerpt]
Being an artist is a little like having a terminal illness. You have to guard against any kind of negativity. When you're struggling for your very life, you don't focus on your eighty per cent chance of not surviving. You focus on the other twenty per cent. You stay away from naysayers and doubters and the people with stories about how Uncle George had the same thing and was gone in six weeks. You surround yourself with cheerleaders who also believe you can make it. You go out of your way to be around other survivors, who inspire you to realise you can do it too. You pray. The important thing is you stay positive by any means necessary and realize (as my friend Mansur likes to say) that the only person who can stop what's coming to you, is you.
...

As a fledgling journalist I would send off my articles with no idea at all if a piece was any good. In fact, I'd invariably think it was bad. It wasn't until the editor called and said they loved it that I would allow myself to think it had any merit, and even then I wouldn't quite believe it until I saw it in print, unedited and exactly as I wrote it. This isn't entirely a bad thing. As author and scriptwriter Veronica Henry [that's Ronnie and me in the picture] puts it, "The minute you think you are good, then quit. It's the fear that keeps you going, the gut wrenching anxiety and insecurity that drives you forward to write your best."

When I first started composing music and lyrics I was so unsure of their worth that I used to sing them without announcing to the crowd they were mine. After enough people had come and asked me if those songs were on the CD, or they wanted to know who wrote something because they liked it so much, I felt braver about announcing they were mine at the outset. [If you are curious, Usha's Wedding and You Don't Have to Believe are here] I also have "music friends" who I run things by. Mark Murphy ... when he really liked something I knew it must be good. And my friend, singer Mansur Scott, who hears all my arrangements and compositions over the phone, is a constant inspiration. The fact that I respect them both as honest people and great singers is huge.

[Particularly at a nascent stage, it is vital to have people around you who encourage you. If I hadn't been pushed into it at the start by my then boyfriend I would definitely not have become a professional singer. And I am lucky now to have a man who believes in me, encourages me and whose opinion I totally respect. I am also signed to a label that believes in me. And I am surrounded by many amazing, encouraging friends, most of whom are in the arts in one way or another, so they understand].
...
Think about the words ‘encourage’ and ‘discourage’ for a moment. To en-courage somebody means to inspire them with courage: to put courage inside them. To dis-courage them is to take away their courage. Deciding to devote your life to painting/photography/music/poetry/writing takes every ounce of courage you’ve got. As author Alison Owings says: ‘You have enough trouble convincing yourself (let alone the rest of the world) you can do it, you shouldn’t have to convince your partner too!’

When I was interviewed on The Russell Davies Show on the UK's BBC Radio 2, he played the boxer’s song ‘Stand Up and Fight’ from one of my favorite movies, Carmen Jones, which I’d told him my mother and I had loved when I was a child. I thought it was a bit of a strange choice but afterwards my mother pointed out that it was perfect because the stamina required of a singer (or writer/painter/musician) is the same as that required of a fighter. ‘. . . until you hear that bell, that final bell, stand up and fight like hell.’ In the arts, where your success is dependent on other people’s tastes, you get knocked down, and have to get back up - again and again.

So when you sink back into your corner you need someone there to rub your shoulders and pour water on you; someone who, because they have made you the object of their utter undivided attention for the duration of the fight, can give you tips about your opponent’s weak points, advise you when to jab with your left or right, tell you what you’re doing right, inspire you to ‘get back in the ring’ for another round. This is not the time or place for a demoralising critique about how you’re never going to make it and you might as well give up now.

In other words, ditch Girl Number 2 and stick with Girl Number 1

As always all comments and other tips gratefully welcomed.

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The Kindness of Strangers

2009-11-03T05:47:00.000-08:00

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This is a question left by Musezwell718 yesterday. I kind of started to answer it in the comments section of yesterday's blog (I think ... or was it another day -- got to work out how to leave actual titles on the sidebar, to make them easier to refer to), but I didn't get to this bit:

"What are your thoughts on inviting positivity and dealing with a lack of (reciprocity of) support from other artistic friends?"

So I am going to ponder on it throughout the day and get to this question tonight. Because it is actually a very good question. I sort of answered it yesterday (or whenever), talking about Martha Graham in my COMMENT (as opposed to the blog itself). But I think there is a more to be said about it.

However, I am now tearing off to the dentist .... Back later.

Feel free to leave comments and questions, particularly on this subject, to add to the day's pondering so I can give a thorough reply.

Tao Te Ching Number 64

2009-11-02T11:03:00.000-08:00

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This is a photograph I took of my very favorite tree in the world. It is above the cliffs in Santa Monica, California. I always make my friend Paul drive by it when I am in town -- which (unfortunately) means I have no idea exactly where it is or how to get to it.

I put it up to illustrate the quote sent to me today by my wise son, who saw my facebook post about yesterday's blog: A Marathon is Run Step-by-Step.

"A tree thick enough to embrace
Grows from the tiny sapling
A tower of nine levels
Starts from the dirt heap
A journey of a thousand miles
Begins beneath the feet...."
Tao 64

... proving the Karl Marx maxim that we learn can from our children. This will have to suffice for today's blog. A reminder to myself to remember how blessed I am. Because sometimes I forget that.

A Marathon is Run Step by Step

2009-11-01T15:41:00.000-08:00

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Today I have a question to answer, which MP left today on Day 1 of the blog.

Question: "I have started on my 5 year plan, resolved to leave "realistic" out of it, and come up with something inspiring and fantastic. A few days into this assignment, however, and I am finding that I am having trouble dreaming and visualizing. Have I become resolved to settling? I don't think so, because I am not comfortable here, either. Tips, pointers, encouragement??? Any insight would be most appreciated."

Answer:

[book excerpt]

By now we've all heard that hackneyed Goethe quote: "Whatever you think you can do or believe you can, begin it. Action has magic, grace and power in it." If only it were that simple. But it's not. Because, although starting is important (duh!), at no point are you more vulnerable to stopping dead in your tracks than at the beginning. As Martha Graham once said: "The ordeal of isolation, the ordeal of loneliness, the ordeal of doubt, the ordeal of vulnerability which it takes to compose in any medium is hard to face."

It's no wonder so many of us give up before we even begin.

Have you heard of Charlotte Bronte's novel Emma? No? Ah.That will be because when she showed the first few pages to her new husband (she married late, thank goodness) he said: "Hmm. Not up to your usual standard, dearest...." And she never wrote another word, of that, or any other novel, ever again.

HERE IS A GRATUITOUS ILLUSTRATION OF MS. BRONTE HERSELF.

So, MP, are you being your own "Mr Bronte"? Is the problem with your dreaming and visualizing coming from your inability to really believe in the outcome. Are you being too hard on yourself, thinking who the hell do you think you are? Are you stumbling over visualizing all the steps it will take to get there?

For any or all of the above, my advice is to go one small step at a time. "You don't have to take the whole staircase," to quote Dr. Martin Luther King. "Just take the first step."

For example, keep visualizing yourself collecting your Oscar or Grammy or Whitbread or Nobel or other relevant prize. But then visualize only the NEXT step towards it. Not all the steps.

When I started singing, all I had to do was trundle along to the next open mic. The idea of having a CD, let alone three CDs as I do now, was miles away in my mind. It was a dream, perhaps, but absolutely not something I considered a real possibility. The same with being a journalist. When I got my first job as an editorial assistant, actually writing for magazines was a dream but, again, not something I really thought would happen. But I faithfully took the first step by applying for (and beating out a hundred others to get) a job as a lowly editorial assistant at Parents magazine.

Did I think I would one day be writing for The Times or Elle or Vogue -- which is what I ended up doing? Absolutely. er... Not. And when I got my first commission, when the Parents editor just announced at a meeting one day that I was going to be doing a piece for the next issue on introducing children to the opera and ballet and other adult leisure pursuits, I was shocked. And terrified.

So I called my writer friend, Sarah Litvinoff, author of The Confidence Plan: Essential Steps to a New You, who at the time I barely knew, and asked if I could read her my first paragraph over the phone. "Of course!" she said. When I'd finished she said: "Oh, it's wonderful. I can't WAIT to hear the next paragraph!" Eventually, paragraph by paragraph (all read to Sarah over the phone), I finished it.

Actually, even while I was writing this book, I struggled with the idea of writing an entire book, until my editor at Random House told me to think of each chapter as its own long article. That made it much more manageable.

So my advice to MP at this stage is:

1. Keep visualizing the "end", in a very light way, without thinking at all about all the steps it will take to get there.

2. Think about ONLY the very next step -- going to the next open mic, applying for magazine jobs, writing the next paragraph....

3. Enlist the cheer-leading skills of a friend who believes in you and (very importantly) the possibilities for you.

4. For crying out loud, don't ask "Mr Bronte" what he thinks -- even if he's you.

Let me know if that helps.

As always, comments, advice and questions are welcome.

Walk This Way

2009-10-28T09:36:00.000-07:00

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[Book excerpt]

“I remember once hearing one of my younger brothers telling his girlfriend my story, what my career was like - I was born, I was talented, I got into piano, I had this neat place and I worked with Miles Davis. He left out this giant part which was the struggle!” Keith Jarrett, jazz pianist [From The Man and His Music]

As I now know, at each step you take you will feel anxious, depressed and tempted to remain with "the devil you know" rather than strike out for the deep blue sea. .... Pursuing something that really means a lot to you; something that comes first in your life; something that is almost as precious to you as a child; something that essentially means putting your soul out there for anyone to stab at if they want to; something that means getting emotionally naked - well, it hurts. ... I met someone at a party once who told me she had become a journalist by default because writing a novel in her 20s had taken over her entire life. "I couldn't think about anything else!" she said. "I wouldn't want to be like that again!"
...
Don't be one of those people who need permission from the rest of the world to be a happy successful human being. You don't. You only need your permission. ... When I confided in my cousin, who had never heard me sing, that I wanted to be a singer, he totally dismissed it as nonsense and told me a terrible story about his ex father-in-law who had similarly "set straight" some poor neighbor who'd asked his advice about whether or not he should be an opera singer. Of course not everyone who wants to is going to be able to sing or paint or write or whatever. But my cousin [who now loves my singing] hadn't even heard me sing. Yet, I obediently went along with his advice.

Or maybe I just used him as an excuse.

[blog]

Today I thought it would be a good idea to explain the actual TITLE of my book. Anything I Can Do You Can Do Better: How to Unlock Your Creative Dreams and Change Your Life. One of my friends messaged me on Facebook saying: "You obviously haven't heard me sing!" which made me realize that some explaining is in order.

When I was writing in my journal this morning -- by the way, journaling is definitely de rigeur for anyone pursuing a creative life -- whether they are writing or singing or painting or sewing or what -- so many ideas come to me when I am journaling that would never have occurred to me if I were, say, watching breakfast television, or even (perhaps) reading War and Peace! Phew, that was such a long sentence that I am going to gratuitously end right there and pick it up again in the next. It came to me that singing isn't something I "do", it is something I "am" or maybe "have".

So the book isn't going to tell you how to sing, or write or paint or sew or whatever. I think that is probably something you have an innate talent for or not -- although of COURSE practice makes perfect, not to mention "use it or lose it"! So it's definitely worth thinking about what it is that you are best at before you decide to devote the rest (or even the next ten years) of your life to it. But the idea of the book is how to then "do" whatever it is you have chosen, or has chosen you.

I forgot to mention earlier in the blog that another major player in my career change was life coach Laura Berman Fortgang, who gave me three months of her amazing personal coaching just before I got into it. I had met her while researching an article which was published in 1997 for the Times in London on Life Coaches (I promise to add the link to the article in a day or so -- still learning how to do these things), and thought it would be interesting to experience being coached and maybe write about that. [Much later, I was helped in making the transition by a year of coaching from another fantastic life coach, Mark Forster, but more on that another time.]

She asked me what I wanted to focus on that I had wanted to do all my life and I picked singing because, (1) I was living with someone, who (for the first time since I had grown up) really believed, not only in my talent but in its possibilities for me and (2), I had always dreamed of doing it. As a very small child. Shopping in the local VG store for dinner all through my teenage marriage. Ferreting through clothing in charity shops for something decent to wear when I was a single mum. Even in my 30s (in San Francisco), singing at the top of my voice cleaning the houses of my favorite clients; the Good Germans (who had an amazing collection of jazz music, which I looked forward to listening to because I didn't have money to buy CDs) and Joseph, who understood. Everything. Who gave me Tower Records tokens every Christmas with a stern note about how I was to use it only to buy music. Who once called me at home and told me off for leaving money in exchange for an orange I had eaten. ["Anything in my kitchen, Tessa, is yours!"] And who, when he died of AIDS, left me his CD player.

And had I not got married to an older man when I was 16 (i.e., before I really even started "living"), to be a singer was what everyone around me assumed I was going to do for a living when I got older. As it was, at a very formative age I spent two and a half years married to someone who was so insecure (clearly, secure men in their mid 20s don't go around impregnating children -- as I now realize I was then) that he pretty much imprisoned me, until I escaped one day (with Mum's help) when he was at work. I was allowed out on my own only twice during the entire marriage. He even raged about my going back to school to do my 'o' levels (which I did in only four months, instead of a year), So singing? Fuggedaboutit!

So that severely put the kibosh on those childhood dreams for myself -- which belonged as much to my friends and my "Irish twin" brother as to me. And then being solely responsible for a child, financially and emotionally, from the age of 18. Well, it wasn't easy -- speaking of "You Can Do Better!

Worth it? Yes! Easy? No!

But not to grizzle. Because I think all those experiences have made me what I am (not to mention provided me with the most amazing son), and are there in my music now. And I hope that they can be useful to others who might be thinking that they threw their lives in the bin by making one "mistake" or who might be thinking it's too late, or too soon or too anything (er ... try scared! I know a lot about that one). Or who might be doing really well in one field but don't know how to begin to change to another. No, I wouldn't say I am a wild success in terms of raking in the dosh (cough!). But even in the midst of despair, and feeling stuck, when I think about how lucky I am and how far I have come in the ten years that I have been singing professionally, I am willing to put my head down and keep soldiering ahead. And I'd like to inspire others to do the same, and pass on some of the lessons I've learned along the way.

In the book I talk to my friend British plumber Mal Peet, whose first novel, Keeper, was turned down by five publishers (including the one who eventually picked it up!) before going on to win the Branford Boase Award and the Nestle Smarties Children’s Book Prize. His third, Tamar, won the Carnegie Medal. And he has just won the Guardian Prize for Fiction for his most recent, Exposure. For years he had come home in the evenings after a hard day's plumbing to spend his evenings literally wallowing in the tub, with a pint of cheap beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other. He started his new career after the age of 50. US corporate business woman Karen Quinn (also in the book) wrote her bestseller The Ivy Chronicles (currently being made into a movie), after being laid off. “Tessa Souter” (that would be a fantasy version of me) actually has a singing appearance in the book, which she was still writing at the time I first interviewed her. She's now on to her fourth or fifth. A huge success.

These people inspire me! And I hope they will you!

Now ... stop procrastinating and DO something!

See you tomorrow.

Tessa's music page

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Something's Gotta Give

2009-10-27T11:46:00.000-07:00

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Must .... Get .... Back ... To ... Blog ....

Maybe later today. I'm so sorry if you came back to check. The last thing I want to be is the C-Town of blogs -- where I don't bother to shop anymore since it has always run out of stuff - shelves bereft of all but a few pots of past their sell by date yogurts and (once even!) a tub of cottage cheese with a thin layer of mold on it.

But watch this space. I will be back later. I promise. And this does count as a relevant post... Let's see. This post is about how sometimes you have to do your other commitments. Then again, Julie blogged every day (I think) AND cooked AND had a full time day job.

Okay, so I will get to it later tonight. Before midnight.

See ... you ... later ....!

Day 3: "This sickness to create. What is it?" Jean Cocteau (Part 2)

2009-10-25T10:48:00.000-07:00

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"Tessa Souter really has a truly beautiful voice and what she does with it really serves great lyrics and unearths the core of great songs." Dermot Hussey, Sirrius XM Radio

I just heard the above quote today on a radio show that was recorded in the dressing room of Blues Alley, when I was performing there recently -- thankfully packed, due Mike Joyce's wonderful review of Obsession in the Washington Post. But it is relevant in a way to Part 2 of yesterday's blog, which ended wtih a quote from my literary agent, Rebecca Strong who pushed me to write and finish the book: "You can do it, Tessa. I believe in you, and I know you can do this."

So, the job of keeping me going nowadays is spread among my many friends and my incredible boyfriend, drummer Billy Drummond, who has been playing since he was four years old (literally! -- he had his first working band when he was eight!) and who is very wise. Wiser than I am anyway. Plus his very existence in my life is proof that miracles do happen and that all that bunk about not being able to find love after 40 is ... well (and thanks to Sheila Jordan, who did some very serious matchmaking) ... bunk. So why not a new career too? Here is a photograph of us.

I also have a cache of saved emails from complete strangers who were inspired to write and tell me how my music has affected them, and I read those whenever I get to I wondering what on EARTH must I have been thinking, changing careers so dramatically mid-life.

Because, yes, I have been singing all my life (since I was three), and absolutely would have become a singer at 16 had I not then had a baby to devote the next 20 years to instead (yikes!). As it was, it would have been hard to start a career in music from scratch at that age. This is us at 16 (me) and one month (him).

But doing it for a living is a huge leap, even if you didn't actually plan to make the leap. In my case I just put one foot in front of the other and kept moving forward. Serendipity did the rest. I met a musicologist -- a horrible music snob (which made it easier to believe him) -- who simply would not rest until he had almost literally dragged me singing out of the shower and pushed me on to the stage. We would have arguments on the way home from jams where I had resisted his proddings to sit in because I was too scared. So when I say music was a "calling" perhaps what I mean is it was a "prodding" or a "pushing." In the end, I started singing at a local open mic to (a) have some catharsis when our relationship was ending and (b) maybe win back his love because he loved my singing, even when he was no longer in love with me (which I now see was all part of The Creator's Master Plan -- to quote Pharoah Sanders song, which I sang on Listen Love).

I would have been perfectly happy just carrying on being a writer who could sing. James Joyce was a wonderful tenor, whose wife was constantly saying she couldn't understand why he was a writer because he was such a great singer (clearly she didn't prod him enough.) But things kept happening. At the open mic, run by singer Trudi Mann, people would ask where they could hear me sing. Which was nowhere, until my friend Fredrick Levore invited me to sit in on one of his regular gigs one night and I ended up doing Saturdays every week (he did Fridays) at a downtown restaurant, which I did for six months -- learning a lot along the way.

I miraculously won a scholarship to the Manhattan School of Music but left after one semester to study one-on-one with the great Mark Murphy when he (even more miraculously and completely out of the blue) asked me to run his workshops for four years in exchange for his wonderful mentorship. Six years ago I got a regular monthly gig at New York's superhip 55 Bar, where I got to build my crowd, and confidence, and where I can practice new songs and/or arrangements in a duo setting, before springing them fully formed at the bigger venues with my full band. I've been very lucky.

But it has required endurance like you wouldn't believe.

Luckily, my life so far has developed my endurance muscles, starting with being a mum and housewife at 16, until at 36 I moved to America and became a cleaning lady in San Francisco to support myself as a freelance journalist. Two and a half years of scrubbing -- on my hands and knees -- the white (for crying out loud!) kitchen floors of the Bad German, washing the thin film of grease from the walls of the Fat Sprayers, emptying condoms out of The Puppy's bedroom trash can and picking gobs of hair from the shower drain of the Human Hairball (all my clients had nicknames), will teach a girl a thing or two about endurance. -- not to mention the pay off, being invited to write about it for British Vogue!

Which is good, because once I became addicted to music -- to studying it, to learning new songs, to composing lyrics, then tunes, to arranging songs (all of which I had done as a teen but had left behind to devote myself to my son who became my raison d'etre), there was no getting off it. Yikes.

So, strangely, given that this is just the start of the blog, this is an early reminder to keep going up the "one more hill", hoping that the hill beyond it (since now I've learned that there will be a hill beyond it) is going to be a little easier (maybe because I've developed stronger muscles or maybe because it's a little less steep) but being willing to put on my mountain boots with spikes if it isn't.

Because, even through all the difficulties and obstructions and the two steps forward and the one steps back, it's a journey I am learning valuable spiritual lessons from. And even if I fall off the edge of the mountain and never get to headline at Carnegie Hall, at least I will be able to say to myself: "Okay! I was doing it!" So much better than, "And I didn't even try!"

Here are some photographs my son sent me a few days ago, of the day his daughter Nara was born. It reminded me of the important things in life. At some point (i.e.,... when I work out how to do these things) I will post the song I wrote for her, 'Nara's Song" to Freddie Hubbard's 'Little Sunflower' -- which (speaking of miracles) I got permission to record on my just-released Motema debut, Obsession.

And, yes, that is a strapless top! Girlfriend has to set a good example right from Day One!

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"This sickness to create. What is it?" Jean Cocteau (Day 2)

2009-10-24T16:53:00.000-07:00

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"Most self help books are a bit irritating but this one is different.... Anything I Can Do You Can Do Better is brilliant for creative types losing sight of their big dream. So if you want a kick of inspiration to begin writing that epic love story, while still paying the bills and looking after your family, this is for you." Reveal magazine

"Inspiring… reading this book is like listening to a very wise friend." Prima magazine

"This is absolutely not the standard 'rose-tinted spectacles' personal development book. But she doesn't just tell you how she did it, but also tells you how you can do 'it' too - whatever your own personal 'it' is." Mark Forster, author of Do It Tomorrow

"Tessa's wit, determination, guts and advice will inspire anyone who wants to go for their dreams." Sarah Litvinoff, author of Starting Again

“Tessa Souter is a gem of a person. Her story will inspire you and teach you and bring you to tears as you feel awe in the presence of her humanity.” Laura Berman Fortgang, life coach and author of Take Yourself to the Top: The Secrets of America's #1 Career Coach

So today I decided why not start at the very beginning of the book. Yesterday was an answer to a specific question from a singer. But the original plan was to excerpt bits of the book and then comment on them with the benefit of hindsight gained from the three years or so since the book came out. As well as (hopefully) receive comments and tips from YOU.

The point of the blog, I realize, is to get you started in your chosen career, if you haven't started already, and (if you have) to help you (and me) keep going when you (and me) are flagging. And I have to confess, I am going through a bit of a flagging stage right now -- for no good reason, because when I think about it, I have been utterly blessed in many things, including my careers, first as a successful journalist -- writing features for Vogue, Elle, the Times, Guardian, South China Morning Post, Sydney Morning Herald (oh, tons of places) -- and, now, as a jazz singer with three CDs out (two recorded for real life labels) who has headlined and sold out major clubs in New York and around the world. On my good days.

Some things before we begin.

1. All book excerpts will be in italics so you can tell the difference between the book and the blog.

2. If I make comments within the book excerpts that weren't there originally they will be in different color.

3. Ellipses mean I have taken out chunks of the book for the sake of brevity.

4. I want to be honest and not have to be all rah rah rah if I don't feel rah rah rah that day. And free to be rah rah rah if I do.

5. I welcome any helpful tips and comments and questions you may have. Please feel free to leave your URL along with your comments.

So here is the Table of Contents so you know what kind of things we will be covering.

1: All You Have To Do Is Dream: Getting Started

2. Walk This Way: What To Do and How To Do It

3. I Will Survive: Supporting Yourself

4. The Long and Winding Road: Keeping the Faith

5. Love Me Or Leave Me: Negotiating Your Intimate Relationships

6. Help I Need Somebody: Agents, Managers and Mentors

7. Helter Skelter: Handling the Emotional Roller Coaster of the Artist's Life

8. I'm Just a Jealous Guy: Competition, Envy and the Green-eyed Monster

9. Blues for Junior: Taking Care of the Children

10. Up Up and Away: Success at Last

11. Go You Own Way: You Know Where You're Going

Reading and Resources

Acknowledgement

[book excerpt]

"You shall go to the ball!" The Good Fairy to Cinderella

Since I decided to actively pursue my dream to be a singer, I have never been so happy -- or so miserable. It's not so much an emotional roller coaster ride as like being picked up in the hands of a huge giant and carried around tenderly for a brief period of respite, and then dashed to the ground. Over and over again. A few months (or years) of that will turn anyone into a bloody pulp, which means you need guts to spare. So the first thing you should truly understand and acknowledge about following a creative dream is that -- contrary to what you might imagine -- it's not all elation and joy, it hurts, even when you "make it". Why else would so many rock gods and movie stars implode once they get there?

Yes, there are a lucky few who are born or married to the rich and famous, or who are well connected, or both. But even they have to prove themselves. Think of Sophia Coppola's ten-year transition from critically panned actress in her father's The Godfather Part III to Oscar-nominated director and Oscar-winning screenwriter for Lost In Translation. I think it safe to say that no singer was discovered by someone who overheard them singing in the shower. No writer was discovered by a literary agent accidentally coming across their private journals hidden under the bed.

Paul Auster sent his first manuscript to nineteen publishers or more before one of them picked it up and made it into a best seller. In 2000, only a year into singing professionally, my voice was described as "The most deeply and profoundly moving voice I have heard in the past ten years" by Columbia Records. Another major label (Blue Note) said: "I don't hear anything special in her voice." [Ouch!] Both were talking about the exact same demo CD.

There's a reason so many great artists commit suicide. It isn't only that they are "sensitive" souls -- although that doesn't help. The hard fact is, if you are chasing a dream, it takes over your life. It becomes an obsession. And it tests you continually. No matter how brilliant you are, you are going to lose confidence. You are going to face rejection. As many people will want to pull you down as lift you up. It takes supreme faith -- in your ability, in the universe, in God, in whatever it takes -- to keep you going. Once you reach the point of no return [Oh. My. God. I didn't even register that phrase when I wrote it!] you will not even know why you are continuing, but you won't be able to help it. "I am working," wrote Frida Kahlo to a friend. "But even that, I don't know how or why."

...

You are going to have to prove yourself to yourself, your family, your friends, the world, the universe, prove your staying power, prove your worth it, prove your belief in yourself. And you are going to have to do it over and over (and over) again. There's a long list of people who didn't stay the course. Judy Garland, Vincent Van Gogh, Diane Arbus, Virginia Woolf, Spalding Gray, Susannah McCorkle, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton ... all killed themselves. Many others drank themselves to death. Or died of the effects of drug abuse. Because pursuing your dream is such a painful endeavor at times, a significant percentage of people can't do it without medicating themselves, even if nowadays that means anti-depressants (the modern artist's laudanum).

...

You will struggle with money, relationships, envy (other people's and -- even worse! -- your own), self-confidence, ego, faith in yourself, in God, in your very soul). Pianist Keith Jarrett put it brilliantly in the The Man And His Music by Ian Carr, talking about one of his albums. "Spirit was born of drowning in a certain place so I could come up to the surface in another -- without forgetting the drowning and without dying."

Still want to do it? Okay then. Because in spite of everything, I can safely say that just pursuing my dream -- let alone achieving it -- has been the best thing I have ever given myself. I hope this book will be your good giant that will catch you before you fall. But most of all, I hope it helps you realize that (as my literary agent kept saying to me over and over again when I was writing this book): "You can do it, Tessa. I believe in you, and I know you can do this."

This book [and blog] is dedicated to you.

To be continued....
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Touring Tips for Musicians (Day 1)

2009-10-23T11:19:00.000-07:00

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Okay so this is actually a response to a question from singer Deborah Latz, on how to travel with your CDs and general traveling advice. She has a nice tour upcoming in France at multiple destinations. I don't expect future posts to be this long but there was a lot to cover!

Question. When you travel overseas and bring your CDs (say 200) have you experienced any problems with customs? Do you bring the CDs on the plane or put them in your luggage? Any other 'tour tips' you have would be greatly appreciated!

There is no specific advice in the actual book on this. However, since the book came out in 2006 I have traveled extensively and learned the following:

TAKING CDS

1. For crying out loud, better to take too many than not enough. On my first trip to Russia I only took 100 and sold out almost at once. Very frustrating to be turning away people who are desperate to buy your CD.

2. CDs are heavy. Invest in a wheelie case with FOUR wheels. You will be amazed at how effortless these make heavy luggage (more on this below).

3. So far customs have never asked me about them but you can always say they are promo copies.

4. Whatever you do (see Point 4 of PACKING), make sure you put enough to sell on your first gig in your HAND baggage, in case your other baggage doesn't arrive at your destination at the same time as you do (always a drag!).

5. There is a limit to how much money you can bring back from certain countries. I could never work out what it was in Russia, I think $3,000 -- which can make for a very stressful time on the way out. Find out ahead of time by calling the relevant embassy.

PACKING

1. I never go anywhere without my 'travel scarf'. This is a huge wool scarf which doubles as an extra blanket on the plane, since the doll-sized plane-issue ones generally don't cut it. Or sometimes I roll it up and use it as a back support or a second-rate but better-than-nothing neck pillow (see item 11).

SCARF/BLANKET/NECK PILLOW/GLAMOROUS SHAWL, BACKSTAGE WITH TESSA AND DANIEL KRAMER

2. Unless you are appearing in the same place more than twice, don't take more than two -- okay, three -- outfits. And no more than two pairs of shoes and earrings/accessories. You think you will but you won't use more than this, and the more you take, the more time you have to faff about in the hotel room in front of the mirror. Not to mention carrying it all... which brings me to ....

3. I take in my HAND BAGGAGE (more on hand baggage in a min) one of those felt covered freezable cold packs because carrying heavy bags has been known to throw out my back -- though not since my new suitcase (see item 7). I find the cold pack works for me. Some of you may prefer hot ones. Find out which is best for you and pack one -- or both. Also pack in your hand baggage good painkillers -- just in case.

4. Okay, so hand baggage. Always pack at least one copy of all the music you will need and take at least one box of CDs in your carry-on. That way, when you're waiting around for your bags at the airport and they DON'T COME (see Letter From Tokyo 1), you will be covered. Naturally, since you have taken this precaution, your bags will arrive. But don't chance it! The two (packing what you need in your carry-on bag and the checked luggage arriving on time) are definitely related, This is known in England as "sod's law" -- though I am not sure what a sod is in this context.

5. Pack a pen with your passport to answer all the landing forms questions, like "Are you bringing any guns/bombs/plutonium?" "Did you pack any livestock?" "Have you petted any rabied animals while you were away?" "Are you carrying more than $10,000 in cash?" (Hah!) “

6. Take small toiletries items in a separate quart sized ziploc bag and put it in your carry-on case near the top so you can whip it out when you need to.

7. My four-wheeled suitcase has changed my life. CHANGED MY LIFE! It practically pushes itself, spins in every direction and I would marry it, if I weren't already taken -- by the very man who (perhaps realizing I would develop "feelings" for my wonder-case) advised me not to buy it. I bought it at Marshalls, or Filene's Basement or Daffy's, for $79 – reduced from $300-something. I have had many cheap suitcases over the years and they are not worth the savings. Trust me.

8. I have two packing checklists (one for domestic and one for international travel) on my computer which I update before and after every journey. When I am going out of town to perform, I print it and check off everything as I get to it. It has on it things to pack, things to do (like charge cell phone or empty trash, or freeze/throw out perishables).

9. Take a hairbrush, minimal makeup (i.e., lipstick) and sunglasses in your hand baggage. I was once met at the airport at 4am (after 20 hours traveling) WITH TV CAMERAS! Thankfully I had my hooded coat to cover up as much as possible of my face and hair but .... Let's just say that now I know why movie stars don't go anywhere without their movie star glasses. And, since that experience, neither do I!

10. I take an atomizer filled with water and a touch of glycerine to spritz my face throughout the flight. It helps to counteract the dehydration far more (and less messily) than moisturizer.

11. My other best friend when I travel is my bead-filled neck pillow. I sewed a sort of tie on it so I can actually WEAR it. This also means that I don't absent-mindedly drop it on the bathroom floor because I forgot to remove it. It allows me to sleep sitting up on a plane. Without it, I can NOT sleep. During a six-hour layover at Moscow airport recently, I tied it into a ball so it remained firm, put it on my 4-wheeled suitcase, leaned forward and ... I slept! Just little 20-minute cat naps at a time, but it helped. I won't pretend I arrived "rested", but without that little pillow there is NO WAY I would have been able to sleep at all and I would have been completely fried on arrival.

PILLOW/WARMER WITH NATTY TRIM

12. FOOD GLORIOUS FOOD! What’s this doing under “packing”, right? Or have you been to Siberia? Or, indeed, Japan (see http://tessasouter.blogspot.com), when I woke up with jet lag at 2am and, after counting the hours until breakfast, discovered that it was soup and rice. Or maybe your alarm didn’t wake you after your 25-hour journey to get somewhere and you missed breakfast. Or you have a ten hour layover at an aiport like Palermo, Scicily (I know, Italy, right? What happened?) or Moscow SVO. Last time I went to Russia, I took four protein bars (giant kind) and five balance bars. Even though I stayed at two nice hotels, I needed them. In fact, I ran out. So pack food – breakfast bars, protein bars, whatever you need for sustenance. And if you find yourself in Siberia, fake a dizzy spell near a supermarket! The one I went to was better stocked than any supermarket I have ever seen in the world – though of course telling the difference between sour cream and yogurt in Cyrillic is a bit of a challenge.

EXTRA PLANE STUFF

1. Last time I went to London, it was snowing there and here, so my boyfriend told me to call ahead and check for cancellations. The flight was canceled and rescheduled. So I got to spend an extra day with him, instead of sleeping on my suitcase at the airport or -- worse! -- doing what singer Sheila Jordan did recently, shelling out another $60 to get a cab back home to wait for the next flight. Yikes! If the weather looks the slightest bit dodgy, call ahead.

2. Plane background noise is deceptively loud. This is one of all sorts of things I never noticed before I was a singer, but after an 8-hour flight during which you didn’t let your seat-mate get a word in edgeways, a girl/boy can actually lose her/his voice!

TAKING CARE OF YOURSELF

It is fabulous to be your own instrument -- which is what singers are. BUT ... the downside is, if you fall ill ... you can sound like ... well, imagine a saxophone that's been left out in the rain for a week. Sadly, people won't realize that NORMALLY (of course!) you sing like Sarah Vaughan at her peak!

SARAH VAUGHAN AT HER 'CRAZY AND MIXED UP' PEAK

Your frog in the throat off notes -- assuming you can even get a note OUT -- will be their first impression and, you know what they say about first impressions. I read recently about a Broadway actress-singer who was disparaged by a reviewer for not being able to hit the high notes. People! She had a cold!!! Warning: I once sang with a horrible cold. Not only did I sound like shite on the nite, I then couldn't SPEAK for six weeks afterwards. You really don't realize how amazingly useful speaking is until you lose your voice. Writing notes to the people in the supermarket when you can't find something in the aisles is surprisingly laborious – especially when they can’t read your hurried handwriting. And the phone … fuggedaboutit! One of the most frustrating and emotionally trying six weeks of my life. So you should do everything you can to head off ANYTHING respiratory at the pass. Here are some of my health tips:

1. STAY WARM
Okay... remember that scarf? This wonderful invention was actually created to keep your neck warm. Opera singers wear their scarves everywhere and that is because they are effective! Staying warm is one of the best ways to stay healthy. Or is it that getting cold can make you ill? Whichever, a scarf is your best friend! If I have been in the cold and am not wrapped up enough or (horrors!) went out without my scarf, I ALWAYS have a boiling hot bath when I get in. This also works. Raising your temperature is the secret, apparently. If a boiling hot bath or shower is not an option (See Letter from Siberia post at tessasouter.blogspot.com to read about traveling 16 hours between gigs in Siberia on a train. No bath. No windows.) Get out your travel scarf and roll yourself up in it.

2. VICK'S FIRST DEFENCE
My friend Adrian Hedley told me about this. It works! That Siberian train journey I mentioned ... the musical director got a horrible cold and actually lost his voice. He also had this habit of getting right up on you to talk. But First Defense, a nasal spray, kept me healthy. No, I didn’t squirt it on him when he got too close! (Only do this in a medical emergency!) I squirted it on me! Maybe it was the placebo effect, but I don't think so. I think First Defense is a UK product. If so, the American equivalent is probably ZICAM. I personally like the candy version. I also really like the swabs -- but it is absurdly expensive because you are supposed to throw away the swab after each swabbing.

3. SPEAK UP
If anyone gets too close to you, don't be afraid to put a hanky over your mouth and say, "I'm sorry. I am a singer and I can't afford to get ill." People understand. But, even if they don't, you have to do it. I haven't had to do this yet, but if I sat next to someone on the plane who was ill I would ask to switch seats. It might feel a bit rude, but you can do it nicely. At least you're not squirting them with First Defense.

4. VITAMIN C
Someone once told me that taking 1,000 mg doses of Vitamin C every hour or so, gets rid of a cold quickly. I have found this very effective. I don't think you need to spend a bomb on Airbourne. My very favorites are Rite Aid chewable Vitamin C tablets with acerola. They are kind of tart, which seems to work on breaking down the -- ahem -- phlegm right away. I use Vitamin C like this as a preventive and as a cure.

5. REST
If you arrive somewhere and you get ill, go to bed. Even a few hours of BED-rest -- i.e., actually lying down -- really helps. When I was in Beirut I got flu on the first day and, canceling the gig not being an option, spent every day in bed and dragged myself out of bed every night to sing. Okay, I wasn't my best for the first few days, but I got through it. This was before I knew about the wonder-drugs, First Defense and Zicam.

6. KEEP YOUR HANDS CLEAN
Most germs are communicated via the hands. That means whenever you touch a doorknob, or hold a railing, whoever held it before you, if they had a cold, will have left those germs. It is a singer's lot to be a germ-phobe. My friend Sue, who is not a singer, but knows far too many than is probably good for her mental health, carries sachets of hand-sanitizing wipes with her everywhere she goes. The seriousness with which she once handed me one when we were out somewhere reminded me of the time my mum told me she was VERY worried about me being in America: “I hope you are wearing at least SPF 30!” (It is my duty to look young for my age, so that no one wonders how old she is). I keep one of those mini hand sanitizing sprays in the same zipper pencil case where I keep my passport – and SPF 30 dabber.

7. GET THE FLU JAB
Since I lost my health insurance (don't get me started!) I haven't yet discovered where to get these done for free, but in my opinion, better to be safe than sorry, so they are worth the $25 or so fee to get them done in a drug storer. However, there are health warnings so you should weigh the risks. And, it goes without saying, if you are ill just don't have injections of any kind.

8. STAY HYDRATED
Drink plenty of water during a flight to stay hydrated. In fact, it kind of ‘oils’ the vocal chords to be hydrated at all times, flying or not. So you should be drinking at least eight glasses a day. Call me a baby, but I find it easier to drink more water if I use a straw.

Send your questions to tessa.souter@gmail.com and I will do my best to answer them. Meanwhile, my plan is to blog on some aspect of doing my book EVERY DAY!

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