Keep moving

Earlier this year, when I was out skiing, I saw this sign at the top of one of the lifts:

This hard-to-miss announcement serves as a reminder to quickly unload from the lift and move out of the way, since there is probably another chair full of skiers or snowboarders coming up right behind you. No one wants to be the reason they have to pause the entire lift because you couldn't get out of the way fast enough (been there—embarrassing). 

Given my penchant for searching for deeper meaning in the mundane, I wondered if this sign could be "a sign" of something more. 

The high school where I taught for six years has a very successful football program. Every year they go deep in the playoffs and, three times during my years there, they won state championships. One of my former teacher colleagues would always congratulate the team members he had in class after their title runs, telling them that they had accomplished something that few people get to experience. Then he would say to them, "Please, please don't make this the highlight of your life." 

In the moment, those comments could seem to be disparaging the team's achievements. His intention, however, was to guard these students against believing that any future accomplishments that do not receive as much praise or hoopla must be less important. In my experience, the most meaningful accomplishments often receive very little recognition. 

Those of you who are graduating soon have had an unusual (to say the least) ending to your collegiate career. It would be easy to look back and feel that you were cheated out of the "college experience" you were seeking. I believe that feeling, which is understandable, is partly because society has put so much pressure on making these years "the best years of your life." 

Honestly, the big lie in that expectation is that there is no one way you are "supposed" to do college. You have not had a lesser college experience if you had to work full-time in order to pay for school. Or if you lived at home. Or if the people you met here don't turn out to be lifelong friends. Or even if you had to take 14 months of online classes. That may have made your experience more exhausting, more taxing, or more challenging, but it doesn't invalidate what you gained during this time and it does not devalue your diploma. 

One of my main advisors during my doctoral studies once told me, "The only thing that earning a doctorate proves is that you are capable of taking on a long, arduous task and seeing it through to the finish." At the time, I didn't feel like that was the most robust endorsement of my decision to spend all of that time and money earning another degree. But, to a certain extent, he was exactly right. One of the most important things I learned during those years is that I AM capable of taking on long, arduous tasks and seeing them through to the finish. That's a skill I have definitely put into practice over the 12 years since I graduated (and a skill I have absolutely needed over the last 14 months). Knowing that I have accomplished difficult things in the past certainly helps me believe that I can make it through any current challenges. 

Going back to that ski lift, one thing I eventually picked up on is that when you get to the top, if you lean forward just enough on the chair, you get a little boost of momentum that can propel you forward. If you are sitting too far back, you just sort of plop on the ground and then you have to work a lot harder to get going. 

Seniors, before much longer, you'll be getting off the lift. You will have faced a long and arduous task that was made even more difficult due to the pandemic. You have persevered. You may not feel like you have thrived, but you have endured and you have made it to the finish. I promise, you will need those skills again in the future. 

It has been an honor to have been part of your journey at the University of Utah. Current circumstances may mean that there will be less fanfare this year than graduations typically receive. Nevertheless, I am celebrating your achievements and hope they will serve as a boost into whatever you choose to do next. 

Do not stop here. Keep moving. 

Love,

-brian

Motivation: The Power of Praise

When I was a beginning voice teacher, some of my mentors and colleagues warned me to look out for students who only want to be told over and over again how great they are. These students, they said, grew up in the everyone-gets-a-trophy era where they supposedly learned to take any vocal corrections as personal affronts and have become addicted to praise. 

Memories like these and my ongoing explorations of how cognitive science has been informing how we teach voice have caused me lately to reevaluate the word "praise." Having just passed Easter, my immediate thought is to put the word in a religious context where it is often paired as "praise and worship." Although similar, these words are actually defined quite differently. 

Most definitions of "worship" relate to reverence or homage paid to a deity or higher power. We may have deep respect for some of our fellow humans, but we generally don't worship each other. Formal definitions of "praise," however, list some combination of synonyms we use to direct our admiration, commendation, laudation, or adulation toward another person. Intriguingly, of the several definitions of "praise" that I found, every one of them included one word in particular: approval. When we offer someone praise, we are essentially offering them our approval. 

So, let's define approval. According to Oxford Languages, approval is the belief that someone or something is good or acceptable. I think there's a lot to unpack in this definition as it relates to our singing.

For years now, I've been trying to avoid using words like "good" and "bad" in my teaching, although I still catch myself saying them sometimes. I just don't like how they are so tinged with judgment. When it comes to training singers, so many people equate "good" singing with a beautiful sound. But often, in musical theatre, the most expressive or appropriate sound for a given situation may not be particularly beautiful (depending, of course, on how we decide to define "beautiful"). From a technical standpoint, I prefer to focus on whether or not someone's singing is free, efficient, or low-effort rather than "good." In this regard, we can also consider classifying singing as successful or unsuccessful if we simply ask, "Did I accomplish what I was trying to do?" In this case, even unsuccessful singing can still be beautiful and expressive. But if we are trying to measure progress in singing technique, we can benefit from focusing on how consistently we are accomplishing what we are intending.

Be that as it may, what if, when we are singing, we are seeking approval in the form of being "acceptable," as the definition says? Acceptable could just mean "good enough," as in, "Was that good?" "No, but it was acceptable." Some days, depending on what challenges we are facing, acceptable might actually be quite an accomplishment. By this definition, however, acceptable may just be a lower version of "good" and can be similarly difficult to accurately assess. 

But I also think that sometimes when we are seeking approval for our singing, we're not just seeking to be acceptable. Rather, we are seeking to be accepted. In other words, we're seeking belonging. 

Belonging, of course, is a deep human need. And I would imagine that singing and theatre have helped us all find communities in which we sense we belong, feel valued, and are recognized for who we are. I would argue that those are all "good" things. 

However, we should also consider this quote from my colleague Prof. Jeremy Sortore at Utah Valley University. He once wrote: 

"Therapy is a great idea. Acting is not therapy. Both of these things have great value, but they should not be confused for one another. If you’re exasperated by preparation and only interested in performance, you might be using acting as therapy."

Now read that quote again and replace the word "acting" with "singing." 

So here's what this comes down to (if you will allow my amateur psychologizing to go on for just a bit longer!). When we are singing, it is natural for us to seek approval. We all want and need approval insofar as we all need to feel accepted and we all need to feel that we are good. 

But hopefully you can feel that you are good and worthy of being accepted because you are good and you are worthy of being accepted. Period. This has nothing to do with how you sing; it has everything to do with who you are and the right you have to exist and to be valued. 

Let's return once more to the definition of approval, but this time I'm going to italicize different words: approval is the belief that someone or something is good or acceptable. 

Consider this: When you are seeking approval for your singing, which is natural and healthy, are you wanting to believe that your singing is good and acceptable or that you are good and acceptable? Because sometimes I think we interpret praise (or the lack thereof) of our singing as praise (or the lack thereof) of our selves. 

Praise of our singing can be an important part of our training—we all need it from time to time. Praise helps us know we are improving and that what we are doing is effective. Praise also helps us know whether we are meeting a standard of success by earning the approval of our teachers, our peers, and our audiences, and that we are meeting our own performance benchmarks, which can be a useful indication as to whether or not we are on track in building a career. 

Seeking this kind of praise may just mean you are driven to meet the expectations necessary for success. But, as a mentor once told me, "You are not your voice." If you are seeking external approval to validate your own self-worth, there may never be enough praise to meet that need.  

The good news, however, is that even on days when your singing feels like it's not earning anyone's seal of approval, you can still know that the person doing the singing is already good and accepted and that those traits can exist independent of any vocal sounds you are able to create.

Praise be. 

Now go practice.