Exploratory Practice: The Games I Play

The first two blogs of the semester have involved reminding ourselves to establish a technical purpose when singing and then focusing on what is working instead of focusing on the problems. 

Unsurprisingly, this tactic isn't just for your vocal technique. It applies just as well to your artistry. The more clearly you identify and commit to a character objective and an emotional intention when you sing, the more clearly those choices will read to your audience. Like we discussed in the first blog, once you have decided on and implemented a strategy, you can then assess that strategy. Was it successful? Could it be improved? Give yourself a few repetitions with the same strategy, then try a different strategy (a new character objective and emotional intention) and see where that leads. 

This is the key to exploratory practice: choose, implement, repeat and refine, choose something different, implement, repeat and refine.

There are two ways you can try this when you are practicing: playing the higher stakes game and playing the opposite game. 

To play the higher stakes game, you have to specifically decide how your characters are feeling and what they are trying to accomplish. Are they annoyed? Angry? Infatuated? Are they trying to dissuade? Chide? Flirt? After singing your song from that perspective, then raise the stakes and take that emotion up a level or two. Instead of being annoyed, try being deeply disturbed. Instead of being angry, play it infuriated. Instead of feeling infatuation, be passionately enamored with the fire of a thousand suns. Instead of dissuading someone from doing something, try actively preventing them from even considering it. Instead of gently chiding someone, try cruelly mocking them. Instead of subtly flirting, try aggressively seducing. This may start to reveal the wide range of emotions and perspectives that exist. 

Next, you can play the opposite game. It's similar to the higher stakes game in that you have to clearly identify what your characters are feeling and what they are trying to accomplish. But, as you might guess, instead of raising the emotional stakes in the same direction, choose the exact opposite. Instead of being inviting, play it as defiant. Instead of searching for love, play it as if a relationship is the last thing you want. Instead of being upset, play it as though you are completely at peace. As actors, this is a fun exercise that can uncover a variety of interpretive choices you may not have considered. Even if these choices are not appropriate for the piece you are working on, they may have applications in some of your other material. Surprisingly, you may also hit upon some choices that could be effective with the piece you are working on, even if they originated as being the opposite of what you were intending. 

Play some games this week with your songs. Raise the stakes, try the opposite, have fun, and see what you discover. 

Now go practice.

If it ain't Baroque...

In the last blog, we talked about singing with a specific purpose or goal in mind. In that discussion, I referenced author W. Stephen Smith and his suggestion to sincerely commit to an action when you practice and to then zero in on how to improve the way you perform that action.

Smith highlights an additional concern he finds in many singing students as they practice, which is that they try to fix their vocal problems. That shouldn't be a bad thing, right? Isn't the point of practicing to fix our problems so we can get better? As Smith explains, 

"Focusing on fixing problems means you're focusing on problems, but a positive mind-set gets much better results than a negative one. So I don't think fixing problems is the thing you should go for—if you do an action, then try to do that action better and better, in that process problems do get fixed, so focus on what you need to do to sing better and not on fixing problems that seem to be in the way of your singing better." (quoted in The Singer's Audition & Career Handbook by Claudia Friedlander, p.44)

I explored this idea in a 2021 blog titled "Motivation: Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive." Back then, I asked students to examine their approach to practicing and then wrote: 

"Do you tend to pursue what is working or do you dwell on what is not working? If you try something five times and only get the intended result once, do you pick apart the negative attempts or do you focus on recreating the one that went well?" 

As it turns out, the Mayo Clinic suggests several of the same strategies for maintaining a healthy lifestyle. In the article "Accentuate the positive to make lasting health changes," the authors recommend setting clear goals, starting small (focus on the next step, not the overall end goal), focusing on the times you did achieve your goals rather than ruminating on the times you didn't, and concentrating on what you can do instead of on what you can't. Lastly, and importantly, the authors advocate letting go of negative thoughts. Certainly this is easier said than done, but they clarify the statement by saying that doesn't mean just ignoring negative thoughts. Rather, they encourage reevaluating your response to negative thoughts and choosing to actively focus on positive feelings and accomplishments instead. 

Many of you have seen the "Operating Instructions" I wrote on my studio whiteboard at the start of the semester, the first of which is, "I am not here to fix you or your voice, because neither are broken." How would your practicing be different if you took on an attitude of enjoying and improving—rather than repairing—your voice?

Now go practice.