Purpose. According to the character Princeton in Avenue Q, it's "that little flame that lights a fire under your ass." Or, as the puppet further philosophizes, "It keeps you going strong like a car with a full tank of gas."
I guess we all ponder from time to time what our purpose on this earth might be. Like Princeton, we may put some thought into looking for purpose this semester...when we practice singing.
Author and voice pedagogue W. Stephen Smith writes, "It is important that [students] always practice with a purpose, that there is always an agenda, a goal, something they're trying to achieve through their practice" (quoted in The Singer's Audition & Career Handbook by Claudia Friedlander, p.44). He goes on to say, "Your brain should always be engaged in committing to an action when you're practicing—not just testing things out, but really committing to an action and trying to improve the way you perform that action. I think most people just make sounds, then evaluate and critique the sounds without really being aware of the action they were taking in the first place."
In my studio, I sometimes talk about this in terms of strategies. I find that students often open their mouths to sing without a clear idea of what they're trying to accomplish and how they're going to accomplish it. They just seem to internally say, "Well, let's see how this goes!" In those cases, when the singing goes well, that's great, but if you didn't sing with a purpose, you probably won't be able to identify why it went well. Similarly, if the singing doesn't go so well, you won't know what to change in order to make it better.
Smith believes that every vocal exercise should have a purpose and, like all cognizant voice teachers, he chooses exercises intentionally to address specific technical issues. "The exercises that I work on with [students] each have a built-in agenda and I make sure they know the objective," he says. "...They need to know why they're doing it and how well they're doing it, so that they are empowered to work on it on their own."
So what happens if you have a clear strategy or purpose and you still don't get the sound that you want? That's when we evaluate whether we may need to adjust the strategy or just the implementation of the strategy. In the same way that not every toss of the dart is going to land in the bullseye, you aren't going to perfectly land every phrase that you sing. Therefore, in some cases, especially if you are building a new skill, you may just need lots of repetition with the same strategy to see if you can get closer to the target.
If you commit to a strategy for a period of time and it still isn't leading to improvement, then it may not be due to your implementation; you may need a new (or slightly altered) strategy. Then, once again, you will need lots of repetition of the new strategy to see if that will get you on the desired track.
How do you know if you need a new strategy or just more effective implementation of a chosen strategy? That can be difficult to decipher. Luckily, you're not alone. I can help you evaluate with the benefit of an outside set of eyes and ears. Also, if you practice mindfully, you will start to develop the ability to know for yourself when you're on track and what adjustments you may need to make along the way. Instead of just running through exercises while your mind drifts off to more interesting places, you can work to stay focused on what you're doing so you notice the subtle changes as you go from repetition to repetition.
As we get started in this school year, identify some goals that you're interested in pursuing this month, this semester, and this year. Then, in our lessons, we can devise strategies that you can use in your practicing to get on a consistent road to progress.
Let's have the wonderful year that we all deserve.
Now go practice.
