Nerd Conference: Day Three

I just finished up my third day at the NATS--not to be confused with gnats--conference in Salt Lake City. I have learned more life lessons that I could ever hope to share and shan't burden you with those details, but I learned at least one lesson that should be universally accessible.

Life Lesson #19: Anytime people with a similar nerdly pursuit gather en masse, it is an absolute certainty that the 'jokes' will be laugh out loud funny. However, if those 'jokes' were ever told outside such a setting, all they would get was a blank look and an awkward pause. Maybe a pity chuckle.

Voice part jokes finally go to their due this weekend at the 51st annual NATS Conference. For those of you who are not deep enough in the vocal world, NATS stands for National Association of Teachers of Singing. As a student of vocal music, and a conference volunteer, I got to attend this conference for free, and get a discount on tickets for the Kelli O'Hara conference recital. (if you are not familiar with this broadway superstar or her work, GOOGLE HER NOW!!! Seriously, stop reading this for a minute and google her.) I also got the chance to laugh about how unintelligent tenors are, how difficult Leonard Bernstein was to work with, and how clavicular breathing is dumb.

All of you are sitting and reading this right now thinking, "none of that stuff is funny." No. It's not funny to you, nor is it very funny to me by myself at my house, but to 700 Voice teachers/Choral Directors/Operatic directors/Artistic directors/Pedagogues/Vocal Scientists/Professional singing artists, they were worthy of full on guffaws.