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.

Purpose: Choosing and Implementing Strategies

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." 

What we learn as the song continues, however, is that poor Princeton knows how important it is to have a purpose while also realizing that he doesn't yet have one of his own. "Everyone has a purpose," he bemoans. "So what's mine?" 

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. 

Happily Ever After

I've never loved fairy tales. 

I mean, I don't mind fanciful stories, cartoonish villains, and singing woodland creatures. It's mostly just the concept of "happily ever after" that I can't get past. 

Fairy tale characters generally face challenges, endure struggles, and overcome overwhelming odds, which can make for some great storytelling. But then we're supposed to believe that, after all that, they just go on living happily ever after? Even as a kid, I knew that was a load of crap. It almost implies that, once you meet some "difficulty quota," life just becomes easy and carefree for the remainder of your days. 

What I always want to know is, what happens to these characters next? Once they face adversity and triumph, what do they do with the rest of their lives? How did that adversity change them? To me, that's when stories start to get good. Otherwise, it's just triumph for triumph's sake—cheap thrills and a fake, tidy ending. 

Over the last two years, I think the question I have heard most often (and wondered the most myself) is, "When can we get back to normal?" All of the other questions related to pandemic protocols (When can we meet in person? When can I take off this mask? When can we stop testing?) are really just more detailed versions of "When can we get back to normal?"

The truth is, I don't think we will ever go back to the normal we knew before. We're just not the same people now as we were then. We've been through the swamp and the magic forest and battled plenty of dragons. So even if we go back to the circumstances we were used to from before, we'll approach them differently now because we're different. 

I think we also get a false sense in academic theatre that everything should have a natural ending. Shows close. Semesters end. That's often how we know it's time to move on and do something different. But most things in life don't ever reach such an obvious conclusion. 

Therefore, if we can never really go back to who we were, and if there is no firm drop of the curtain signaling the end of how things were, at least we can move forward as who we newly are. And there is happiness in that (and fear and excitement and trepidation and eagerness). 

Seniors, I'm sure you will all be inundated with one question in the coming weeks and months: What are you going to do next? In fact, some of you are probably getting that question already. I understand why people are asking. You're reaching the last natural ending of your college career, so it's time to do something different. It's logical that people would inquire as to what that might be. 

I'm more interested in your answer to a different question, though. How are you going to do what you do next? Now that you have faced challenges, endured struggles, and overcome overwhelming odds—like every good fairy tale character—how have you been changed? How will that impact the way you approach the next chapter of your life? 

We've had quite the adventure over the last few years. Regardless of whether you're coming back, moving on, or still deciding what story to start next, I'm glad we could fight the dragons together. 

Much love.

-brian

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. 

Practicing vs. Performing

As you have probably noticed, I often quote professor, author, and vocologist Lynn Helding in this blog, and for good reason. She is widely recognized in the field of voice pedagogy for her work applying cognitive science to singing.

One of the topics I have seen her discuss many times is the difference between learning (or practicing) and performing. As she says:  

Learning is…

-A process that takes time (weeks, months, years)

-Dynamic (requires effort and attention)

-Messy (doesn’t follow a straight line)

-Destabilizing (as old habits are undone)

Performance is…

-Refined

-A display of what we can do

-A reflection of where we are at one moment in time

-Prepared with an audience in mind

This distinction is crucial, particularly because I find that singers often approach practice sessions as performances as opposed to opportunities for exploration and learning. 

For instance, if your practice sessions are all about making beautiful sounds 100% of the time, you may be performing instead of practicing. If you are overly conscious of the fact that your roommate or family member in the next room can hear you when you're singing, you may be performing instead of practicing. If you're running through your songs without going back to work on trouble spots or to explore different sounds and intentions, you may be performing instead of practicing. 

Of course, we do have to practice performing. When you have a performance coming up, you probably need to stop exploring new options, start settling into your choices, and begin refining what you're doing. Your practice sessions then should be about consistently repeating the choices and intentions you will use in your performance. That's the best time for full run-throughs of your songs. 

But when we are practicing with the intention of building skills and capabilities, THAT'S when we need to address long-standing inefficiencies, work systematically on all aspects of technique, thoughtfully problem-solve, and have the patience to stick to the frustratingly long road to progress. 

Then when we do perform, we can step away from this tedious but necessary process and lean into what we CAN do at that moment. 

In your practice sessions, do you ever catch yourself performing when you mean to be practicing? How can you bring yourself back into the concentrated, effortful work of practicing in those moments? 

Now go practice. 

Sometimes practicing can be like walking through fog, when the goal in front of you is difficult to see.
But consistent steps forward will lead you to the destination.