Extract from “LOVE SET TO MUSIC” by FIONA COMPTON.
Malcolm Craig – April 1957 Opening a Singing Studio.
There was nothing more to be done. We had sung at concerts, taken roles in musicals, appeared in film adverts, and made some radio broadcasts. If wealth could have been measured by the number of times our photos appeared in the society pages of the local newspapers, we would have been the richest people in Jo’burg! The truth was that we really couldn’t live on what we were earning. The money we had managed to bring to South Africa together with what we had left in a bank before we returned to England after our tour was fast disappearing. We had to cast our net wider in order to continue living with a certain degree of comfort. Reluctantly, we realised we had no alternative but to start teaching singing, certainly the last thing I had ever wanted to do.
I had been blessed with a good voice and had never needed to work very hard in order to improve it. To tell the truth, I had absolutely no idea how to teach other people to sing. On the other hand, Marina had worked diligently to improve her small voice and rid herself of a range of vocal faults. She was always telling me that things had come far too easily to me, while things had been difficult for her. Despite all her hard work, her voice remained average in comparison to mine. That might sound very big-headed, but it was no more than the truth.
For a very reasonable rental, we found a charming, airy studio on the eighth floor of a building in central Johannesburg. From the balcony leading off the studio we had a fine view of the hustle and bustle of the city. Across the road from the studio we had competition from three little boys who appeared every morning to play Kwela music on a penny whistle, guitar, and a bass made of a tea chest with strings attached to it. We moved our Chappell Grand piano, a fine Wilton carpet and a full length mirror into the studio. With the aid of a fitted cover and matching cushions Marina managed to turn a rather pedestrian divan into a fashionable studio couch. There were roomy shelves at one end of the room so we brought all our music in and filled the empty shelves with our large collection of songs and scores. Marina had a glass panel erected above the studio couch and we placed numerous photos of ourselves in various shows and with some of our famous colleagues from our days in the UK behind it. We had a phone connected in the tiny room leading off the studio which we grandly called “the office”, bought a smart leather-covered appointment book, put several classified advertisements in the local newspapers advertising our services, and waited for a rush of prospective pupils to phone for an audition and put in an appearance.
We even held a studio-warming cocktail party one evening in anticipation of the arrival of our prospective students. All the well-known musical and theatrical folk we had met attended the get together, along with friends we had made since our arrival in Johannesburg. Some genuinely wished us well in our new venture, while others attended out of mere curiosity to see how we had arranged our studio, and perhaps hoping that our latest venture would fall flat very soon.
“It’s very charming,” said one of the local singers who ran a large and successful teaching practice in the city, styling herself as Madame Ricardo. I sensed a “but” was to follow, and I was right. “But where are all your music diplomas and degrees? You should put up all your qualification certificates on the wall. Even though you are famous compared with the rest of us poor locals, parents usually like to see that you have letters after your name before they hand out their money to you every month. I have one wall of my studio simply plastered with all my music diplomas – you must come up and see it one day.”
Marina and I smiled at Madame Ricardo and murmured non-commitally. Truth to tell, neither of us had a diploma or a degree to our names! Despite the lack of these paper qualifications we had enjoyed careers these locals could only dream about. Had Madame Ricardo, with her wall plastered with all her musical qualifications, ever sung in the Albert Hall or at Drury Lane? Having letters after her name did not automatically mean that she was a capable performer.
“And of course, you must join the South African Society of Music Teachers,” Madame Ricardo continued. “I’ll be very happy to nominate you for membership. All you have to do is fill out a form listing all your qualifications and your teaching experience.”
We moved on to greet our other guests without giving her the satisfaction of admitting to our lack of professional qualifications. Presumably the Society of Music Teachers would turn us down flat as we had neither qualifications nor any teaching experience! Not for the first time, I wondered if I was living in the middle of a terrible nightmare from which I might never wake up!
We had a number of curious inquiries from our classified advert, but few followed up their initial enquiry when we told them the fee we were asking. We had assumed that we would charge the same sort of fee we had heard quoted before we left London. One of my colleagues had retired from the concert platform and was running a successful and busy teaching studio from his home in Highgate. Before we left the UK he had told us what he charged for lessons. We had reckoned on charging the same in Johannesburg, but we had not bothered to ask the local teachers with all those impressive letters after their name, what the average local fee was. Before we even had a chance to gain experience in teaching, we had effectively priced ourselves out of the local market.
FIONA COMPTON.
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