I’ve had a chance to go out and see two terrific performances this last weekend. The great thing about living in NYC is by far, for me, the talent. This place is just alive with phenomenal talent.

Friday night it was The Accidentals at The Rubin Museum, the Himalayan Museum here in town and last night I caught a first time opening of a new developing piece called “Women of a Certain Age” at the Bitter End in the Village. Both pieces were generated by Watchfire Music’s inspirational music artist, Margaret Dorn.

Both pieces were beautifully done and each in a different stage of development. It was a fascinating contrast of performances, but what jumped out at me most of all this past weekend is really the essence of this post.

For my money, no matter how great the instrument, a singer only works as well as the actor inside. I had the opportunity to watch 12 different performances of professional singers all with wonderful voices. Some were better than others. Why? What it came right down to was that some were better actors than others.

Moms, if you want your kids to grow up and be good singers, besides all that vocal training, get ‘em into a good acting school with a good teacher. It’s just as important as good vocal training.

Occasionally some young person comes along and they just do it naturally, that is, they just have some hooked-in talent that places them right in the middle of the reality of doing so that when they sing, they are really there right smack in the middle of the moment. They may not even know what they are doing, but they just do it naturally.

But for most of us, we have to learn how. And ya’ know, even those who do it naturally ought to study so that they too can analyze what they are doing and understand it better. It’s easy to get away from the reality sometimes and get ‘off’, get out of sync with the naturalness.  In times like that, and they will come up, it’s good to be able to break down a song and analyze where things are getting off.

I’ll even go so far as to say that a performer who isn’t blessed with a great or sometimes even a good instrument can still pull it off if they are a good actor. Rex Harrison’s performance in My Fair Lady is such an example. Bob Dylan is another. Now you might ask, “You mean Bob Dylan is a good actor?” and I would answer, “Yes, he, in his style of often nonchalance, is a good actor within his songs because he has total commitment to the music and lyrics. He is a natural.

Living in NYC for all these years has enabled me to see and hear some wonderful instruments, people with amazing voices. The ones who only have the voice I find that I instantly forget, I become immediately bored with in performance and never want to see again. They’re like the pretty Hollywood faces you see on TV – beautiful people who can’t act.  Fascinating to look at for a moment, but not anyone you would want to take home to show mom.

And when they put both elements together, that’s when it really gets good. In my lifetime, for me, Judy Garland did it best. She is still the model that I use in my classes of who to go watch if you want to see it done best. Judy understood how to do it. She had that great studio training that Hollywood demanded and gave back then, a great instrument and her rich inner life infused her voice with passion, texture and beauty far beyond the ‘sound’ of her voice.

The young Aretha Franklin also had it naturally for a while there and Whitney Houston had it for a while, but the ravages of drugs probably was the cause that threw them both off the track. Now when I watch either of them, I am embarrassed for them because they’ve forgotten how to do it. There are elements of the old know-how still there, but something false that ruins it for me.

The actor in Barbara Streisand brought a great instrument to a genius level when she sang the music she understood, the music that was at her root. When she got off, it was because she tried to sing Pop music and had no basis for it. She was a Broadway singer, not a rock star. For a period there she was as confused as any singer I’ve ever heard, but when she sings the music she understands, she has that greatness.

Frank Sinatra, among the men, was the singer who brought both elements together the best for me. The actor underneath it all in Frank infused his voice with the truths of his life and we could not help but listen.

Pavarotti too, with that great instrument, would not have been Pavarotti had he not had the commitment of the powerful actor underneath it all.

These are the examples of our trade. These are those whose greatness we try to emulate. I watched these 12 performers try to achieve that greatness and each actually did reach a sense of greatness in moments, some grasping at straws, some getting up on that horse and actually riding it for long moments. It was thrilling to watch the effort. I take my hat off to each of them for the quest.

It ain’t easy to stand before you in the shadows of the greats and show our stuff. Often humiliating, sometimes sublime, we do it for those rare moments when magic is made and people stand, applaud and feed that energy right back.

It strikes me that often the most confused are the church singers. Why should singing in church require any less commitment to the text? Why should church singers not express their emotions? Or often it’s way too far over the top as in some hysterical emotionality that makes many singers scream their brains out, or unfortunately, just the opposite. Some singers are simply the sound of their voice, or worse, the sound of their instrument devoid of human communication.

Why must religion bring such extremes? This act of singing that we do is a funny thing when ya’ think about it, but at its base, at its heart is the desire to communicate the truth of life. That’s what we need to reach for in all performances. Communicate our own sense of life to others so that others may understand life better. Be real. Be committed. Be yourself at all costs. That’s what really interests me – who you are and how you see it.

I listen because I’m interested in your particular corner on life. I know that I might get a further insight on life from you. That’s what I care about. But if I find that you’re not really being you, I stop listening. I go away.

So underneath it all is not really the actor, it’s really you. That’s all I want to get to know. That’s why I came tonight to see you. I need to know how you feel, who you are, what you think – what is your take on life. Then if I can glean some truths from you I can adjust my thinking to your truths and grow as a person. When that happens, we usually walk away from a performance and say to others, “Go. It was worth it. I loved it.”