Thursday, March 28, 2013

SingSnap drama...

No, it doesn't involve me.  My week back on SingSnap has been very drama free, for the most part.  I don't do a lot of listening or commenting because I don't really want to join any cliques or anything.  I just want to pass time with a fun hobby.

Anyway, last night I was Googling SingSnap.  I'm not sure what prompted me to do that...  it's not like I'm disgruntled or anything.  Indeed, SingSnap has been the source of much satisfaction lately.  But I ended up finding a very negative blog about SingSnap written by someone who was apparently kicked off the site for uploading her videos illegally.  I don't know anything about this.  I haven't a dog in the fight.  It does look like the woman who wrote the negative blog is not the most stable person in the world.  I base that on the fact that she writes in all caps, uses a lot of profanity, and uses a very hostile tone in the way she writes.  But honestly, I don't know what happened, so I hesitate to judge much.

Upon more exploration, I found more negative postings about SingSnap... and realized that I missed a lot of drama that apparently happened around the time I dropped off the site.  Suddenly, I remembered that karaoke is full of people who dream of the big time.  There are a lot of folks who can't sing that do karaoke just for pure fun and an adrenaline rush.  There are some who do karaoke to practice their singing skills.  And then there are some who may dream of seeing their name in lights... and a few of them actually have the talent to make it happen.  When you get folks like that in the mix, there is the potential for serious drama.

It all kind of reminds me of my flirtation with the music department at my college back in the 1990s.  I was an English major.  I wanted to be a writer.  I studied music for fun and as a diversion against some of the pseudo-intellectual types in the English department.  A lot of my friends were music majors.  I remember it was a bit of a cesspool, though, because people were always competing for solos.  There was a hierarchy, especially involving singers.  Indeed, I remember one woman at my college who had a beautiful voice and got almost all the solos.  That pissed off other singers who were also very talented and wanted a shot at the limelight.  It wasn't the most supportive environment.

What's funny is, I am now Facebook friends with a lot of those people twenty plus years later... Almost none of them have made a career in music.  That soprano who constantly got solos?  I saw her on an episode of Showtime At The Apollo back in the late 1990s.  She actually did a great job and won her first round.  The next time, she was defeated.  It occurs to me now that the Apollo is not quite as legendary as it might have been back in the day.  The show aired at a time when few people would be watching.  I know that soprano eventually went to the Manhattan School of Music, where she studied voice.  I think she lives in New York now, but I don't think she made music her career.

I was caught up in a musical drama myself once...  It's actually kind of an embarrassing story, since it happened when I was 21 years old and just a couple of months out from graduation.  I took voice and there was another woman two years behind me in my studio who had sort of a rivalry with me.  She got one of the rare solos in our choir...  It so happened, I had a very opinionated friend who made some derogatory remarks about the way this woman sang.  I defended her somewhat... but as it turned out the woman in question was behind us and heard us talking.  She was very upset and I felt like a heel.

Wanting to make things right, I sent her a nice letter that was very apologetic; though in retrospect, I should not have written anything.  I was trying to be nice, though, and felt guilty.  Her reaction was not what I was expecting.  She started spreading a rumor that I had written her this hateful screed that maligned her character.  Pretty soon, I had music professors coming up to me, asking about the letter I wrote.  Making things worse was the fact that her roommate was pledging the music fraternity I was a member of.  The roommate ended up de-pledging over the drama.  I got so upset that I almost withdrew from the choir, because I couldn't deal with all the gossip and bullshit.  This chick was on a full fledged smear campaign.

Finally, when a respected voice teacher approached me about the "hateful letter" I had written, I got really fed up.  This professor was not my teacher and really didn't even know me.  I glared at him and said, "You know, I don't think that's really any of your business."

His response, "Oh no!  I don't want to get involved!"

Furious, I went back to my dorm room and called one of my sisters.  I was telling her about what was going on... It was such a ridiculous, petty situation.  And I said, "I wish I could just go put copies of that letter under the windshield wipers of the faculty members' cars!"

Eureka!!!

I had a brain storm.  It so happened that our college had a rather strict honor code.  A person could get kicked out of school for lying, cheating, or stealing.  I knew this woman was lying to people about the letter I had foolishly sent her.  For some reason, she was on a mission to shit all over my reputation.  It was very "cluster B" behavior, though I didn't know that at the time.

I had written the letter in longhand, so I didn't actually have any copies.  But I was so pissed off at her... and I wanted to nail her in the act of lying about me.  Moreover, I did remember about 99% of what I had written in the original.  So I re-wrote the letter, then made copies.  I carried the copies with me and confronted that bitch at our next rehearsal.  I looked her in the eye and said, "I'd like to know what kind of rumors you're spreading about me."

She looked nervous.  I asked her if she was aware that lying was against the Honor Code.  She started to stammer a bit.  Then I told her that I had copies of that letter I had written her and the next person who asked me about it would be getting a copy.  Of course... I was also violating the Honor Code myself by doing this, but it occurred to me that in order to prove I was lying, she would have to produce the original letter, which would prove that she had been trying to smear me.

She tried to be tough.  Then she became pathetic.  She whined to our choir director that I was "trying to make her talk about something she didn't want to discuss!"  It was pitiful.  The choir director was a bit of a dick, anyway... but I was seriously pissed off.  My last words to her were that I was graduating in two months and she should grow up.

I did notice that after I confronted her, she was sweet as pie to me.  I never had any more issues over the incident and none of the other faculty members approached me.  In fact, I never heard another word about it, which kind of proves that she was lying and knew she could be brought up on honor board charges if I wanted to pursue it.  Incidentally, I never did have to show the fake letters to anyone.

Today, it kind of embarrasses me that I got so upset over something so petty and ridiculous.  But back then, it was a big deal... and it really highlighted how incredibly competitive musical people can be.  I think it's sad, actually.  Music is something that should be shared.  There's room for everyone to be a diva at some point.  Even William Hung was a diva for awhile...



I am not Facebook friends with that woman today and wouldn't be friends with her now... I think she's a nasty, vindictive person and someone who engages in those kinds of smear campaigns is unlikely to have grown up much.  But I do feel kind of proud of the way I outsmarted her and I'd do it again.



    

2 comments:

  1. That WAS smart. She would've had to prove that she had violated the honor code to prove that you had violated it.

    I see in my university's music department much of that of which you speak. I think it's worst in the vocal music segment. I know of them only because I've filled in as accompanist at some of their rehearsals, and I've heard them talking about each other in theory, instrumental and choral conducting, and children's music education courses. in the a capella group in which I participated to fulfill a group participation requirement, I don't think anyone was a voive major, so we didn't have that nonsense.

    There's even an element of the inherent rivalry among the piano majors here, but it's pretty easy for me to walk away from it and say, "I don't really care. I'm just doing this to aid my chances of getting into medical school." I have faced some petty jealousy because music theory comes easily to me, especially in my first year when I was so young,but again, I really never sought to be a peer of anyone in these classes, so Iconsidered it their problem.

    William Hung was one of the all-time great moments in reality TV.

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  2. I think female singers can be incredibly competitive and some of them get really nasty if you threaten them. Even when you're doing karaoke at a bar, there's usually the house star. If you come in and somehow outshine them, they can get really jealous. It's rare that I run into another woman singer who is excited about "competition" and wants to be cooperative, if she happens to be the local diva. There was a woman who used to hang out at the officer's club where my husband and I used to go on Friday nights. She was hands down the BEST singer... until I showed up.

    She was always a bitch to me and my husband, though we were always pleasant to her. And she was also very prudish and would do things like sing "Money" by Pink Floyd and edit out the word "bullshit". She'd get mad if anyone sang "Letter To My Penis". Yeah... she was a real barrel of laughs!

    My own father could sometimes be the same way when he could still sing. He is not able to sing now because he had to have a trach for a long time and it caused one of his vocal chords to atrophy. As someone who also likes to sing, I'm sure that is horrible for him-- to lose the ability to do something you once could do well and with ease. On the other hand, he used to torture me by singing along to Muzak, so maybe its poetic justice.

    As for William Hung, I never actually saw that clip until today. I never watch American Idol.

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