Music and the Big Man

A 30-can pack of Keystone Light and a half dozen used red Solo cups pepper the basement of a house tucked away on Hunter Avenue. A beer pong table and mismatched furniture are the only functional pieces in the room. It’s a Monday night—band practice night—and senior Steve Rothkopf stands in front of a microphone, guitar slung across one shoulder, dark bangs framing his face.

It’s the second time his group—called Sure Thing—has practiced together. The band works its way through an original piece called “Stop Talking” and covers of songs by KT Tunstall, John Mayer, Guster. Each time Steve stops, he points out pitch problems, tempo troubles and sloppy starts.

Then it’s time for a classic cover, the one Steve is known for.

"This will be the billion and oneth time I've played this song," the guitar player jokingly complains. He's traded his guitar for a ukulele on this song.

"Well you done done me in and you bet I felt it. I tried to be cool but you're so hot that I melted. I fell right through the cracks, now I'm trying to get back."

It’s the Jason Mraz song that won him the title of “Big Man on Campus” last year at the annual Greek talent show and fundraising event, where he competed for his fraternity, Theta Chi. Now he’s playing it to an audience of Marvel Comics characters peering out from a poster on the wall.

“I won’t hesitate no more, no more, it cannot wait, I’m yours," he sings.

"No shaker yet," he sings melodiously, as though the instructions were part of the song.

Amid the screeching reverberation of amps, the banging of drums and the occasional between-song guitar solo, Steve is focused. It's just weeks before the Big Man on Campus competition and as the 2008-2009 king, he has the opportunity to perform with the band in front of a packed auditorium while the judges pick the new winner. This year he's performing an original song and he's determined not to blow it.

***

On a Thursday afternoon, Steve stands in front of a large wooden mirror. On his left, voice instructor Dr. Brian Horne sits at the piano and plays scales.

Shoulders squared, Steve sings through a series of warm-ups. He sings "oh" and "a" and "nyen" and "nyaw," as he works his way up and down the scales.

"It could be prettier than that," Dr. Horne comments as Steve stumbles.

"Yeah, that's not really happening today," Steve says, and continues to sing.

Steve is an optimist on and off stage. When he's not smiling, he's focused. He strives for a killer work ethic, but never adopts a ruthless attitude. It would be easy—maybe even expected—for someone with his talent to be arrogant. After all, a singer's career is riddled with sacrifice and self-interest. Instead, Steve's sincerity and humility add power to his voice.

He works hard to juggle all of his interests: guitar lessons, piano lessons, choir practice, band practice, opera rehearsal, and voice lessons. He's talented, but human. Sometimes he chooses to hang out with friends instead of rehearsing. He doesn't lock himself in a music school practice room at all hours of the day. Sometimes, he'll let one of his activities slip. In the end, however, he's determined and committed to his craft.

In Dr. Horne's office, music isn't just an art – it's a science. Steve is "vocalized." Notes are "stabilized" and "focused." From his piano bench, Dr. Horne tilts his head slightly to the left, his face stoic and un-readable.

Looking into the mirror is uncomfortable, but it's part of the job. So Steve stares at himself, watching for any flaws. Is he standing straight? Is his jaw too tight? Is he fidgeting?

Later, when Steve practices alone in his Theta Chi bedroom, he just focuses on the sound. For 45 minutes each afternoon, he sits on his blue futon facing the television and warms up his voice. In the evening, he spends an hour running through more challenging pieces, like "Un'aura amorosa." The light, lyrical aria sweeps through the dingy frat house.

Steve's practicing in his room again, his fraternity brothers will joke. I heard you all the way at the end of the hall, like, on the other side of the building.

But he keeps singing. Beatles posters surround him in his small, single room. On one poster—a collection of CD covers—the red and yellow "Beatles 1" cover holds special meaning. It's the album that inspired him to learn to play guitar and piano as a high school student in Indianapolis.

As a kid, he was also hooked on the King of Pop. Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” was constantly on repeat. Before that, he says, it was tunes from Disney movies. At eight years old, his mother signed him up for a musical theater class.

“I really didn’t want to do it,” he recalls. “I remember my mom saying, ‘Steve, you really like musical theater. Just do it.’ For awhile, I would go to class with my arms crossed, just stubborn.”

The disdain didn't last long. Soon Steve was auditioning for and landing roles in "Oliver," "A Christmas Carol," "Les Misérables,” “Jesus Christ Superstar,” “The Phantom of the Opera,” and “Seussical the Musical." He took private voice lessons, testing himself technically with classical music.

It's a challenge that led him to Dr. Horne's stuffy office, where he stands in front of a mirror analyzing every move. He is determined to succeed.

***

Steve remembers his first opera. As a high school senior, he drove from Indianapolis to IU to see the university performance of "Carmen" in the cavernous Musical Arts Center.

He already knew he would attend IU as a vocal performance major, but the waves of self-doubt hadn’t set in yet. Still, it was impossible for Steve not to subconsciously compare himself to the performers. “Damn,” he thought. “Those guys are pretty good."

Soon he would be commanding the MAC stage. Students in the Jacobs School of Music wouldn't make it easy, though. In fact, that's one of the reasons he decided to attend IU.

"I wanted to be in a competitive atmosphere because I wanted it to prepare me for music as a career. It's going to be a lot more competitive than IU," he says. "I wanted to get a taste of that and to know that I could handle it."

Now that he's wrapping up his undergraduate degree, new fears have set in. What if he makes the wrong decision about his career? Is he going to be able to find work? Will he be able to support himself?

"It's going to be a hard life," Steve admits. "I’m going to have almost no money. I'll probably be working a second job all the time. It's going to suck, and I'm afraid of how much it is going to suck."

And then there's the question that runs through every college student's head: What if I'm not good enough? Steve tries not to worry about the unanswered questions, but they're always there.

"I think it just comes down to, this is what I'm passionate about," he says. "This is what I was put on the world to do. I feel very strongly about that and I think that even if I did fail, and even if things didn't work out, as long as I gave it my best shot, that is a very fulfilling life decision."

Ultimately, he believes, it comes down to determination. How bad do you want it?

Steve takes a cue from a book he received for his birthday last May. It's a classic by Napoleon Hill called "Think and Grow Rich." Each night, Steve lies in the top bunk of his bed and follows Hill's advice to "concentrate upon a given desire until that desire becomes a burning obsession." Sometimes he's performing in a Broadway musical, other nights he is giving a recital or performing with a band at the Verizon Wireless Music Center in Indianapolis. For 30 minutes each night, Steve lets himself find a pocket of calm in a raucous house. He turns off the lights, climbs into bed, and stares at the ceiling, picturing success.

***

The Big Man on Campus crown hangs from a post of Steve's bunk bed. The red velvet has lost its form. Gold metallic string is coming loose and the white faux fur is worse for the wear after several years of use.

It was only a week ago that he learned Big Man on Campus would be on the same night as a choir performance at the fall ballet. For Steve, the decision about which event to attend was clear. Choir has never been Steve's most rewarding activity. In the beautiful din, his voice is just one of many.

"I mean, if I weren't singing, there would be absolutely no detectible difference in the sound," he says. "So I feel like, what's the point? That's a poor attitude to have, but it's the one I have."

As a member of the 70-person University Singers, Steve practices for an hour and 20 minutes three days a week. The conditions are difficult to sing under. The practice room in the Music Annex is hot and the singers sit cramped together in two arching rows. Voices boom from every direction. They're so loud Steve can barely hear himself. After each practice, he walks away vocally drained.

In the week leading up to his performance at Big Man on Campus, Steve's nightly meditations are focused on the IU Auditorium stage. He's standing under the lights with his band performing an original song he wrote while studying abroad in Vienna. He can imagine how it sounds, how it looks, and how it feels. He hears the beginning of the song's chorus in his head:

And now I stop, and I check the time,

Look at the calendar again and I find

It's Thursday evening, I'm alone,

And I'm just staring at the ceiling.

***

It's Friday night and Steve is winding his way through the IU Auditorium's maze of backstage hallways. As one of the night's master of ceremonies, he's dressed in a dark blue pinstripe suit and red tie. For three and a half more hours the crown is his, and he wears it proudly.

He drops off his stuff in the dressing room where sorority girls and performers are clustered in pods. Someone is strumming "The General" by Dispatch on the guitar.

Steve says hi and weaves his way upstairs and backstage where girls in pink sports jerseys and sexy police uniforms mill about. He looks over his cue cards highlighted in orange for stage directions and yellow for lines. He's jovial, but focused.

The evening drags on, and Steve watches from behind the curtain as guys perform songs by Miley Cyrus and The Fray. Almost all evening he's pacing around reading and re-reading his cue cards.

Finally, as his fraternity brother Tyler prepares to take to the stage, Steve seems to loosen up. He's changed out of the suit and into jeans and a blue "Rush Theta Chi" T-shirt. He's still wearing the crown.

The last performer of the evening exits the stage, a short video plays, and Sure Thing walks behind the lowered curtain in almost total darkness. Steve's smiling, but inside his thoughts are running wild.

Where are the sound guys? Shouldn't they be hooking us up now? How much time before we go? Does everybody have his or her stuff? I just changed strings ... is my guitar in tune? What tempo do I want? Tendency is to rush, so I should start out a little slower. Should I introduce my band before we play? My little brother Tyler sounded awesome. I hope he wins. I hope the sound guys have the mics balanced correctly. Do they know to turn up Adam's volume for his guitar solo? This crown is not going to stay on my head. I'M SO PUMPED RIGHT NOW!

The curtain rises. The crowd cheers.

"Hey guys," Steve says, beaming out at the audience. "It'd like to perform a song I wrote called 'I Wanna Come Over.'"

"Another hour, another day, another week goes by," he sings into the microphone. The gold string on Steve's crown sparkles under the yellow and blue spotlights. Mid-song, the crown falls off the back of his head, but he just keeps playing.

From curtain to curtain, Steve is on stage for five minutes. It's the most alive he's been all evening. The crowd applauds as Steve says, "Thank you." He picks his crown up off the hardwood floor and puts it back on his head.

The new Big Man on Campus is about to be announced. The crown keeps slipping off Steve's head as he walks off stage, but he picks it up, puts it on, and keeps moving.