Performing vs. Assessing

Two blogs ago, we discussed the differences between practicing and performing. In short, practicing involves stretching yourself, trying new things, and making exploratory sounds, whereas performing (and the practices leading up to a performance) involves settling into your choices and doing the best you can with your current skill set. 

Then, in the last blog, we discussed how non-judgmental assessment (through awareness and inherent feedback) can help us silence our inner critics.

Now let's talk about the differences between performing and assessing. To start, let's go back to the dictionary. 

Oxford Languages defines performing as carrying out, accomplishing, or fulfilling an action, task, or function. It also, and more obviously to our purposes, defines performing as "presenting to an audience." I actually prefer the first definition, though. When we perform, we are essentially looking to fulfill or carry out what we have already accomplished during our practicing and rehearsing—we're not trying to accomplish something new. As I have said before, we shouldn't expect magic to happen when we perform. We should expect an "average performance" where we deliver a presentation that is as close to what we normally do as possible. 

Assessing, on the other hand, involves evaluating the quality and effectiveness of our singing. This is a crucial part of practice, since it informs us as to which aspects of our singing we need to focus on building and improving. 

Performing and assessing, therefore, are different tasks. Too often, in my estimation, instead of doing one (performing) and then the other (assessing), we try to do them both at the same time. The trouble is that human beings are notoriously bad at multitasking (even though we think we're great at it). As the Cleveland Clinic points out, when we multitask we become less efficient and more prone to making mistakes. In essence, instead of doing one thing well, we do more than one thing poorly. 

There is an appropriate analogy here. As explained in The Musician's Mind by Lynn Helding, the body's sympathetic nervous system is responsible for ramping us up when we are in the presence of danger or, unfortunately, when we are experiencing musical performance anxiety (MPA). Thankfully, we also have the parasympathetic nervous system to calm us down and restore us to a resting state. It's fascinating to note, however, that these two systems can't function at the same time. In order to calm down, we first have to turn off the system that is revving us up before we can turn on the system that will start settling us down. Helding uses the analogy of taking your foot off the gas pedal before you start to press on the brake. 

In a similar way, we can't really perform and assess our performing at the same time. That's multitasking, or the equivalent of pressing the gas and the brake together. So if you're performing and you catch yourself assessing or judging the sound you just made, you're no longer performing. You have switched into assessment mode. And chances are, if you noticed that shift, so did your audience. 

Of course, you have to practice the way you intend to perform. Therefore, you need to practice performing without assessing. Odds are, when you finish your performance, you will still be able to think back and give an honest analysis of what just happened. It takes practice to really commit to monotasking and keeping your focus entirely on your performing while you are in the moment. There will be time for assessment later, I promise. 

As we get closer to the end-of-the-semester juries, consider practicing monotasking. Just perform. Then assess. Then repeat. 

Now go practice.

Using assessment, awareness, and inherent feedback to silence the judges

As a voice professor, W. Stephen Smith hopes every lesson he teaches brings himself one step closer to being obsolete. As he says, "My goal is to teach my students how to teach themselves and work myself out of a job." (as quoted in The Singer's Audition & Career Handbook by Claudia Friedlander, p.44)

Encouraging students to develop their own self-diagnostic skills is a big part of motor-learning theory. As singers' abilities increase and become more consistent, they are less reliant on instructions ("augmented feedback") from their teachers. Instead, they can first consult the internal sensory information they get when they sing ("inherent feedback"). In the Journal of Singing, U of U professor Lynn Maxfield describes the two primary types of inherent feedback: proprioceptive and exteroceptive.

"Proprioceptive feedback is that sensory information received from sources within the learner’s own body (primary sources being sensory receptors imbedded within the body tissues), while exteroceptive feedback refers to sensory information received from sources outside the body, the primary sources of which are vision and hearing."

Of course, as we discussed last semester, students can only benefit from their own inherent feedback if they are actually paying attention to what is happening while they are singing and not just switching into auto-pilot. 

Once singers do get that inherent feedback, the next thing to do is assess, which involves evaluating the quality of the singing. In The Inner Game of Music, authors Barry Green and W. Timothy Gallwey describe a similar process, encouraging musicians to use awareness. As they write, 

"Awareness shows us what feels and works best for us...it can even locate specific problem areas, discover solutions, increase our options, and facilitate instant changes. Not only can awareness help us through technical musical challenges of many kinds, it can also enhance our ability to be swept up in the music, to become one with it." (p.37-38). 

Therefore, honest assessment based on awareness and inherent feedback can both identify problems and reveal potential solutions. An obstacle may arise, however, if that assessment is tinged with judgment. 

In its official definition, there is nothing inherently negative about judgment. According to Oxford Languages, "to judge" is simply to "form an opinion or conclusion about." But, as all singers have likely experienced, there is a more sinister side to self-judgment. As described by author Eloise Ristad in A Soprano on Her Head, "We all have inner judges who yammer at the edge of our consciousness, often intimidating and immobilizing us." 

If we negatively or harshly judge our own singing, we move beyond mere assessment and may enter the realm of self-consciousness. Of course, being "conscious of self" is really what inherent feedback is all about, which is the heart of Green and Gallwey's idea of awareness. But a second definition of self-consciousness is to feel "uncomfortably nervous about or embarrassed by what other people think about you." The irony of this form of self-consciousness is that we're not really focused on "self" at all. Instead, we're focusing on what other people may (or may not) be thinking about us. This can take up a lot of head space and cause quite a distraction while we're singing. 

Luckily, Green and Gallwey offer a strategy: "By accepting distractions and then consciously choosing to focus our attention elsewhere, we can increase our awareness of the music—and lessen the amount of frustration we feel at the distractions." (p.38)

In the article on the stages of motor learning cited above, one indication that skills have moved into the third and final "automatic stage" is that the skill can be executed in different settings, in different situations, and even among distractions. And what could be more distracting than our own self-consciousness? To treat judgments and self-consciousness as distractions, however, may allow us to strategize around them. Once again, Green and Gallwey offer help: 

"...we need to leave our assumptions and ready-made judgments on one side and pay attention to what is actually going on. We can choose to put our attention where we want instead of leaving it on the distractions." (p.38)

In other words, giving more focus to inherent feedback and awareness may crowd out the distractions of "judges who yammer at the edge of our consciousness," thus allowing us to "enhance our ability to be swept up in the music, to become one with it." 

Despite the best efforts of teachers like W. Stephen Smith, we may always benefit from the augmented feedback that trusted teachers provide. But honing our awareness and trusting our own inherent feedback may help us build technique and silence the judges. 

Now go practice.