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.