#10000HoursTowardsProficiency is a self described challenge for me to record and show evidence of my long term improvement as a singer, pianist and musician as I demonstrate and analyse my practice sessions.
I have been recording #10000HoursTowardsProficiency for 5 years now and am just getting comfortable with it so I only have about 100 hours of piano videos and 20 hours of singing videos. As I continue to record my progress I hope to be able to demonstrate the long term commitment that classical music requires.
I started playing piano when I was 4 in an after school group setting with other kids from my elementary school. We would all go with our Moms and play piano as a group with our own keyboards. I continued until I was 14 and then was unable to from 15-35 when I was living in precarious housing due to foster care and needing to work 2-3 jobs at a time when I was a young adult.
Teachers
Dr. Yoana Kyurkchieva
Dr. Kyurkchieva was my first teacher after my brain injury, I learned a lot from her as she was a very good teacher. Long term it didn’t work because of my memorization skills being so poor.
Learning With Permanent Disabilities
I have CPTSD due to early childhood sexual abuse and other severe adverse childhood events. Due to being anally raped in 2008, I was unable to sit for almost 16 years. I was barely able to walk and required multiple surgeries and hospitalizations to repair my injuries from the attack.
In 2003 I suffered a moderate traumatic brain injury which required me to relearn to walk, talk, read and write as well as do basic math again. While I’m able to function at about a University level again, I still have problems with my long term memory and it takes me along time to memorize music.
The important of this is to show other people that recovering is possible and that for those naysayers out there, that working on my music daily helps me to face my CPTSD and the long term permanent effects of the brain injury.
Geshe Jamphel is my Tibetan theology and meditation teacher. When Luangphor Viriyang died in 2020, I decided to study the Tibetan meditative mind as discussed in Tibetan scripture to understand the differences between the two. In 2023, I started the Basic Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition program at Nalanda Monastery in France. I do the courses online.
This relates to piano in that some of the pieces that I’m memorizing right now are 4-5 pages long and meditation helps me to overcome my brain injury and the long term effects that CPTSD has on memorization.
Luangphor Viriyang Sirintharo was my Master Teacher of Meditation from 2002-2020 when he died on December 22nd just 1 month shy of his 101st birthday. He taught me Samatha meditation which means “calm abiding” and helped me to recover from CPTSD and the brain injury. I apprenticed with him daily throughout my recovery as I wasn’t able to practice or work very much. He is considered one of the most esteemed teachers of Meditation in Thailand and was a very caring and happy monk. He taught meditation for 70 years and now has temples in 4 countries where they teach meditation courses for free.
My experience with Montserrat Caballe was a lesson. In 2013 and 2014 I was invited to sing for the Cardiff Competition and the Montserrat Caballe Competition but I had to decline because of the Court case surrounding the anal rape and the Victims Service Financial Benefits Tribunal. In 2015 after spending weeks training in hip hop dance with the underground scene in Europe (at the Coast Del Sol near Barcelona) I went to the Masterclass of the Caballe Competition in Zaragoza where Montserrat proceeded in laughing me off stage in front of 300 participants and attendees. I cried because I thought she was going to be a leader. Instead she signed an autograph for a famous violinist friend of mine and told me that since I was working on the childhood sexual abuse issues that I wasn’t going to be able to sing professionally. I had heard that from former teachers as well.
I knew it to be wrong because that Autumn I established law and policy for victims of incest to be able to be granted funding for psychological care no matter the age they were when they were attacked. I literally established Alberta policy on the issue.
I know Luangphor Viriyang never laughed at me despite doing very interesting things as a meditation student of his over a 20 year span and that Caballe was just using me as schtick.
Heather Meyers trained with Giulietta Simionato and Hans Hotter. She was my teacher from 2006-2012. I had to decide if I would train with her seriously or if I’d spend my time with Luangphor Viriyang as I didn’t drive at the time and needed to take the bus to both lessons. She eventually kicked me out of the studio for studying Italian with a man from Florence. Overall, again, lesson learned, great performance resumes don’t make for great voice teachers sometimes.
