Here we go, 2024/25!
A couple of years ago, I wrote a blog advocating that we should all aim to give "average performances." I wasn't trying to say that our singing should be dull or uninteresting. I was just pointing out that, most of the time, our singing will be representative of what we normally do—it will reflect our average.
Of course, we love it when the stars align and everything seems to go perfectly or like it never has before. And we love it when that happens in front of an audience or at an audition.
But, I'm sorry to say, that usually doesn't happen.
In statistics, we call this phenomenon "regression to the mean." For singers, this allows for the fact that certain performances will be outliers: either way better than usual or way worse than usual. But most of the time we settle into what we do most of the time.
The goal, then, is not to hope that whenever we perform, it will be one of the outstanding outliers. A more reliable approach is to methodically work to raise our average—to improve the quality of what we do most of the time. We accomplish this by identifying specific goals and engaging in strategic practice.
Coming up with specific goals requires some honest reflection about your current skill level. What do you like about your voice? What does it do well? What are some vocal elements you would like to preserve throughout your vocal training?
Then you can reflect on what areas you'd like to build or strengthen. Where do you find your voice sometimes falling short? What are some skills you admire in other singers that you would like to develop in your own voice? What skills will help you sing the songs you love most?
After that, we can come up with a plan for strategic practice. What exercises can we use that will target the skills you want to develop? What exercises will help continue to solidify the parts of your voice you want to preserve? How can you set up a regular schedule of practice so that you can devote consistent time and effort to building these skills?
As Aristotle said, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” If we want our average performances to be excellent, setting specific goals and consistently engaging in strategic practice sessions are the most certain ways to get there.
What goals do you have for this semester? What parts of your vocal technique and performance do you most want to preserve and improve?
Now go practice.
Hi Professor! Excited for class this semester! I have a few goals in mind for this semester. First of all, I would like to increase my range, so that way I can more easily access the highs and lows. My voice is not built for the extremes but being able to hit falsetto and jump up high for certain notes would be a benefit. I also would like to improve my ability to sight sing, even if that is not a thing specifically taught in this class. I look forward to a great semester! Thank you!
ReplyDeleteThis semester I want to continue working on building my mix, as well as bringing my chest voice a bit higher. I want to work on stamina, specifically targeting my breath for instances when I have to dance and sing at the same time. I really like my musicality, but feel that I sometimes am too rigid in getting it right, so I also want work on giving myself permission to deviate from the score and make my own choices, when appropriate, and maybe work on riffing and agility as a part of this (again, when appropriate).
ReplyDeleteMy goal for this semester is to be able to hold notes independently while singing with other people. I have a hard time, especally in front of people, knowing which not i'm supose to be singing. For my goal i want to work on this practice to where i feel confident enough to be able to do it freely. I'll practice by holding different notes on the piano and singing something else, using karaokes, or even singing over a recored version of me. I'll check in with myself every two weeks and see how many notes can i be hearing and still hold my own.
ReplyDeleteI really like this idea of thinking about performances as average. I think I get disappointed when I'm performing, whether it's acting or singing, and it's not the best I've ever done it, even if it's not bad. I think this is just a much healthier way to do it that takes some of the pressure off.
ReplyDeleteI would also like to get better at harmonizing and not just switching notes to what the person next to me is singing. I also want to expand my comfortable vocal range by two half steps, which would allow me to solidify the two notes that I can currently reach unreliably. To do this, I'm going to do something similar to what Yas is doing and find duets that I can sing the harmony to. I'm going to do the zee-ah exercise and related exercises that I learned in private voice because I've found that have helped me increase my range so far. I'll check my range whenever I do these exercises and see how it increases over time.
Wow! Interesting thoughts of performances being outliers (either bad or good) and how we want to aim for improving our average. I think that's applicable to all performances, not just singing. I do think having goals can help with that. Through my consistent practice I hope to have a voice that I can use consistently and healthily, regardless of if it sounds good or not. Clearly that's the end goal, to sound good, but for where I'm at, I would rather have a healthy system. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteI'm excited to get into vocal lessons weekly this semester! My goals for this semester are to strengthen my mix and head voice and create a more seamless transition from chest to mix. I also would like to improve my contemporary tone since I feel like my voice leans a little more classical, and I'd like to achieve a nice contemporary mix tone as well. I also want to gain more of an understanding for what exactly is happening physically when I make certain vocal choices. I want to preserve my resonance and vibrato since I feel like I have a nice established sense of both.
ReplyDeleteI really liked this concept. It scared me when you talked about how we tend to go to the extremes on both sides of how our performance is when we perform. It's either really bad or we did way better than we thought we would. Unfortunately I relate to that haha but you make a really great point that with consistent practice we can be the average of our best and that's a overall great place to be! I also really loved the quote inserted by Aristotle. It motivates me to keep to the practice schedule I have made for myself and to perform more frequently.
ReplyDeleteMy goals for this semester mainly center around consistent and helpful practice every day. I’ve never been good at taking care of my voice and strengthening it, I tend to just jump into singing songs. I would like to focus on strengthening a healthy mix-belt so I can expand my repertoire to more contemporary musical theatre. I would also like to improve in the realm of breath support since I haven’t done a heavy movement show in forever and I need to build up my stamina to help me sing more challenging songs. In general, I just want to take more care in ensuring my voice is healthy and being exercised in a way that isn’t damaging or promoting bad habits. I’m super excited to get to work!
ReplyDeleteThe goals that I have this semester is to work on my vowel diphthongs when I am singing in my past experience in vocal training I tend to focus on the wrong vowel then I change it mid performance I would love to be able to start out on the right vowel and be able to identify when it is wrong and fix it early. Another one of my goals is to work on where my voice sits while singing. I have noticed that my voice usually sits in the back of my mouth but I would love to be able to identify in a song where the placement of my voice complements the piece that I am singing.
ReplyDeleteMy goal this semester is to gain confidence in singing. I want to sing in front of people. I want to sing in class. I want to perform. I want to sing enough that my body gets used to the idea that I can sing and not die. I also haven't sung in a while and I want to get back into it and use that muscle more often. I'd also like to be more consistent in my practice. I tend to practice until I get it right rather than practicing until I can't get it wrong. I'd like to put in that work this semester.
ReplyDeleteThe concept of aiming to perform average is fascinating. I find myself generally too focused on my performances being perfect and to the best of my abilities, and while that sometimes is productive, coming at it with the hope of maintaining a consistent average could be better overall. My goals for this semester are to understand my voice better and work on my placement. I would love to have better control of my mix and higher register. I tend to rely on my chest voice and that does not serve me all the time, so I would love to work on branching out from that. I am excited to have the excuse to practice consistently and work on my voice actively.
ReplyDeleteI normally don't enjoy reading, but I know I'm going to enjoy reading these blog postings. I'm writing this directly after my practice session, and now I want to get back in that practice room and keep going for another hour! I really love the idea of bringing my average up higher rather than trying to be extraordinary all the time. In shows I typically am able to find that consistency and fall into a rhythm, but I struggle in concert or cabaret style performances to keep my nerves calm and just do what I've practiced. I think this is because during those types of performances I'm presenting as Ryan, and in a show I'm presenting as a character.
ReplyDeleteThis next week I really want to try and focus on breaking down sections of my music. I want to take things piece by piece and attack the little things. I'm a smart vocalist in terms of my pedagogy knowledge and my knowledge of my own voice, but sometimes I don't get picky enough with myself. I'm very emotionally driven about "that wasn't good" but sometimes I don't put in the right amount of work to polish it. In my last practice session earlier today, I focused on the little sections and tried to take my time on each section. I'm also noticing that the songs that I sing best are not the songs I've been working with for years, but the new songs in my book. I believe this is because of bad habits I've built up with old rep that I can't seem to break away from. I'm excited to work on some new music and let my voice flow freely!
This is a great post Brian! There are some days where performances feel so hard and vocally fatiguing and all I can do is hope for a day where I try to do everything right and preserve it! Using what we learned in Pedagogy last year has made all the difference. Not only that, but the more I practice what is uncomfortable to me, such as blending between all my registers smoothly (aka without cracking), the more my voice will get used to that. This semester I really want to go forward learning how to make that more smooth and seamless as I really want to get into more contemporary tenor musical theatre songs, as those are the main areas I will be auditioning for in the near future. This also applies to making my mix have a more heavy or powerful sound than it has been. If I keep that up and practice that, it might help me to perform on an average, rather than hoping one of the others are outliers.
ReplyDeleteThe idea in this blog of working on the average was quite interesting. I know in the past I have gotten hung up in practice when I can't reach the quality of a one off run of a song, so this mindset seems really helpful. Some goals I have set for this semester also go along with this idea of improving the average. For example, I want to be able to sustain a G4 for at least 5 seconds. In the past, my range has capped at an F4, but occasionally I have been able to sing above that. I would like to make the shift towards being able to sing higher regularly. I also want to work on removing tension when singing in my upper range. I have a tendency to tighten my throat as I go up, which hurts my voice and worsens my tone. I want to really work on confidently approaching higher notes so I can sing them well and healthily. This blog was great, and I look forward to the rest of the semester!
ReplyDeleteI really appreciated this blog post; it was very timely! I often find myself being disappointed if performances/auditions aren't polished and "perfect"...but ultimately I need to be viewing them as a good measure of my improvement! Not only this, but I think I can view my successes in a practice room or lesson as an encouraging measure of what I am able to do. Something I really would like to work on this semester is vocal stamina. To work on this, I can practice singing rep and adding onto it more and more. Not only this, but I would really like to work on creating a richer, fuller sound in my voice. I find that a lot of things that I have been doing recently have required me to be in a more pingy, bright, belt and I think working on more jazzy rep could allow for me darken my sound a bit!
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to this semester,
Alexa Shaheen
A great blog to start of the year! This post was a great reminder to recognize that actually most performances will not go exactly the way I want. It can be difficult to remember that in such a (literally) performance based field. One of my goals has a lot to do with this topic— I want to work towards not being my own worst critic when things don’t go how I want, vocally. Other goals I have include strengthening my mix, and identifying the different placements in my body to build stronger motor learning skills.
ReplyDeleteHailey Petersen
I’d like to focus on increasing my range this semester – my goal is to reach a point where I can use my voice with versatility. I struggle with projection, and a key factor in improving my audibility is utilizing my voice in as many ways as possible. Setting up a practice schedule and using the vocal warm-ups we’ve explored in class already feels productive. I like that my voice is on the deeper side, but it feels stuck at that level, and consistently exercising my voice will allow me to get the most out of this course. I’m excited to learn, and so far, I’ve gotten quite a bit from what we’ve done so far. Thank you, and I look forward to a great semester!
ReplyDeleteMy goal for this semester is having more confidence and sustainability in higher and harder notes. I can sing highish notes (on a good day) but holding the notes can sometimes be challenging and can turn into a struggle. My voice I want my voice to sound more full as well. I also want to learn more and more about sight reading and Theory of music and the voice specifically. Excited to learn more in your class!
ReplyDelete(i submitted this earlier but it did not save)
ReplyDeleteA goal for me is to learn the basics of the voice. I want to do this both mechanically and intuitively. I know nothing about the voice so I would like to learn the vocabulary. I also would like to learn the proper technique to eventually start teaching myself because as of now i have no idea as to what I'm doing.
By the end of the this semester I want to improve my pitch accuracy, to the point were I can easier land on a pitch within a song as well as stay on my note when working on harmonies in an ensemble. Another goal I have is to make the transition between my “head” and “chest” voice smooth and constant.
ReplyDeleteSarah Glancy