Giving up your dreams? Advice?

Parents Forum
1

<p>Hello, I am a high school senior living in the West Coast.</p>

<p>I’ve always loved to sing, and I was going to pursue singing/acting (since I liked musicals)
but I had to give up because people told me I had no talent lol.</p>

<p>Well I’ve gotten into a six year pharmD program and will probably be attending,
but that means I’ll be giving up my dream forever. Right?</p>

<p>and I guess I’m kind of feeling sad 'cause I’ll never be performing in front of a crowd …</p>

<p>(I wanted to be in our high school musical but
couldn’t fit it into my schedule because of all the ‘prep schools’ for SATs…
My parents are fairly strict about academics…_</p>

<p>How did you deal with this sort of ‘depression’?
Did you ever had to give up something really, really dear to you - as in passion?
How did it turn out? Did you ever regret it dearly?</p>

2

<p>If you love to sing and perform, there will always be opportunities for you…think community theater productions or civic choruses, church choirs, or the like. Many adults pursue music and theater as a hobby and it’s lots of fun…and you’ll meet many wonderful people. You don’t have to be the “star of the show” to have fun doing these things…you just have to want to participate.</p>

3

<p>Yeah I’m definately thinking of joining university choir (if there is one).</p>

<p>But I feel bad about myself because I can never be a professional singer…
(I have other talents but I want to ‘trade’ it for talent in singing… lol)</p>

4

<p>You do not have to give it up. It may not be your major; it may not be your vocation. But it can be your avocation, like a hobby. When you are looking at things to do at your college, look at the theatre department. You didn’t say what school you are going to, but unless it has a huge MT program, you probably have a chance to perform and participate in shows. You could take electives in theatre. Some other opportunities may be student produced shows or community theatres. After you finish the pharm program, you may even change your direction. Many performers take other paths to the stage besides a MT major. </p>

<p>Where there is a will there is a way.</p>

5

<p>I’m going to Northeastern University, Doctor of Pharmacy.
I’ll have a few room for electives / I’ll be doing Co-op for one semester per year,
so I’m thinking of taking classes during my Co-op time…</p>

<p>I’m worried about taking acting/dancing/singing classes as an elective because
if I dont do very well on the courses, my GPA will drop and
I won’t be able to receive scholarship anymore :(</p>

<p>I heard that for musical you must be a very good dancer too, and I’ve never taken a dance class in my life…
I’m just a bit scared about the whole thing.
I don’t want to regret about this when I’m older…</p>

6

<p>Get the pharmacy degree. </p>

<p>Pass/fail is made for people who want to stretch their intellectual horizons without trashing their GPA. Take some fine arts performance courses pass/fail. Talk to the instructor(s) about how hard the course(s) will be to pass. Generally if you show up and make a reasonable effort, you can pass almost anything. If you really can’t sing, the instructor may have you down for a D—, but the official record will show a P. This is for low level courses. Do not irritate the dedicated professionals unless you find that you yourself have a “vocation”.</p>

<p>While you are at it, try to get parts in school productions. This is hard as the fine arts people usually snatch these up, but it is possible. Continue with the pharmacy degree.</p>

<p>Try summer stock. But continue with the pharmacy degree.</p>

<p>Sing in a choir.BCWTPD!</p>

<p>When you get the pharmacy degree, get a job, and look for a community theatre group or start one.</p>

<p>If everyone wants to direct you away for singing parts, you can’t sing. LOL There is still much personal satisfaction to be derived from participation in theatre.</p>

<p>Read “Outliers”. It takes about 10,000 hours to be good at something.</p>

<p>To quote Heath Ledger’s Joker, a psychopath but a wise man; “If you are good at something, don’t do it for free”.The corollary to this is; “If no one will pay you to do it, you are not good at it”.</p>

<p>I pursued my dream of playing football until I could not walk without crutches. Then I quit, let the injuries heal, had surgury, let that heal, could then walk and even participate in low level college athletics (not football) and then became a football fan.</p>

<p>I later officiated, something only those who love the game will endure.</p>

<p>I regret not getting to play my last few years in college. I did like walking better.</p>

<p>You may not get all your dream, but you can have a satisfying and fulfilling portion of it</p>

7

<p>Quick - name all of the top singers you know who got there by majoring in it during college.</p>

<p>Okay - now name singers you know who got there whether they went to college or not and regardless of what they majored in.</p>

<p>I think you should disconnect the college major from your desire to sing. I don’t see why you can’t do both.</p>

8

<p>The voice doesn’t mature until the early 30’s. So, you still have time. Get the pharmacy degree, and you will have bucks to spend on singing and dancing after graduation.</p>

9

<p>You are too young to give up any of your dreams. Go to college and keep on singing. If any opportunities come up for you as a professional singer, take a leave of absence from school and pursue those opportunities. Even if you spend the next six pears doing nothing but academics, there is no rule that you cannot pursue your singing career later. My friend’s son gave up his spot in a band to attend college and get his degree, largely done to satisfy his parents and to stave off the dreaded starving artist syndrome. He graduated with a degree in business, rejoined the band, and now makes a living playing music. There is no timetable. There are no limits.</p>

10

<p>Maybe you’ll be the next American Idol…</p>

11

<p>singing is definitely a challenge. not everyone is born with the talent required to make it big, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still have fun. join choirs, musicals, a capellas, whatever you want and continue to enjoy your love for singing. Do you have a dream to sing in front of a crowd and entertain them or do you have a dream of singing, recording records, and making a million dollars. Because the latter is obviously not as realistic…</p>

12

<p>A capella groups are hugely popular on many campuses. And you certainly don’t have to be a music or theater major to participate.</p>

<p>I would also suggest auditioning for other music/theater opportunities on your campus. The people who told you that your talent was insufficient may have been judging you by professional standards; they didn’t want you to make the mistake of pursuing a career that would be inappropriate for you. But the standards for community theater, church choirs, or some of the more informal music and theater opportunities on your campus may be different. You may have plenty of opportunities to participate.</p>

<p>If I were you, I would especially consider auditioning for performance ensembles sponsored by the music department. Northeastern does not have a performance concentration in its music major – just music history, music technology, and music industry. Therefore, people who hope to make a career out of musical performance will not attend Northeastern, which is good for you because it reduces the competition. At universities that have musical performance majors, it can very hard for students who are not music majors to get into any musical performance ensembles. But at universities like Northwestern, enthusiastic amateurs may be very welcome.</p>

13

<p>when my daughter was in high school , she wanted to major theatre. She was always in the school plays, though always small parts for the musicals. She could not sing and really not much of a dancer. She was a good actress, but we really discouraged her attempting to pursue a career in theatre. It just wasn’t practicle to us, since she didn’t have the talent needed to compete in such an industry. She reluctantly agreed. When she was a senior, she got the lead in the non-musical production…it was great and then she realized there would be other things for her to pursue.
She couldn’t be happier with her choices now.</p>

14

<p>If you’re worried about your GPA, take a dance class at a local studio, or join a church choir (there are PLENTY in Boston). That way…you get to do what you love to do…but you don’t get graded.</p>

15

<p>Who told you you can’t sing? Almost anyone can sing in a choir and almost anyone can improve her voice with training and practice. Assuming you are not tone deaf, you should be able to find some group that would want you. Of course that does not mean you will ever make any money at it. In fact, many people with huge amounts of talent are currently waiting tables in NYC because they can’t make any money at it. Keep going with the pharm degree.</p>

16

<p>A lot of people can sing. I have been in college and community choirs for years, and have always been impressed with the high quality of voices there.
But most people, even most very talented people, cannot be professional singers, and the vast majority of those who do spend YEARS in professional training, followed by endless auditions, frequent rejections, and minimal paychecks. They aren’t performing before a “crowd” of adoring admirers, but as the professional soloist for a regional performing arts group in the middle of nowhere. Even cobbling together a series of these gigs doesn’t generate enough income to pay the bills, so they also have to try to find a teaching job somewhere that does not conflict with rehearsal and performance times.
That’s the reality. As other posters have pointed out, there are plenty of opportunities for talented amateurs to perform, especially in a university community.</p>

17

<p>If it is your passion you can find ways to pursue it, and who knows how good you will be with training and practice. You can have fun with it either way. </p>

<p>But imo, yes, we all have dreams we have to give up on, especially ones that require extreme talent, like being a professional singer/athlete/writer/artist, etc. All of us have some dreams that we don’t have the talent to achieve. Accepting that is a part of life, though it can be hard. Even people with talent, who’ve trained their whole lives for such things, often don’t make it, aren’t “good enough” or lucky enough, or just don’t get the big break. Finding a way to do that activity in a productive and satisfying way is part of life, too. Good luck! You’ve gotten some great suggestions here, and I think once you try some of them, you will find that singing will still bring you great joy. </p>

<p>And the dreams can still be fun, even if they don’t have a chance of coming true. I still dream of what it would have been like to be a drummer in a rock band, even though I’ve never been a drummer, have no desire to be one, and have never HAD the desire to be one. It’s just fun to think about!</p>

18

<p>Thankyou for all the advice.
I thought I needed to choose one or the other :slight_smile:
I was also sort of caught in the romanticism of throwing-away-everything-to-follow-your-dream syndrome…</p>

<p>Thanks!</p>